Poland's PM says authorities in the previous government widely and illegally used Pegasus spyware
apnews.com
Poland’s new prime minister says he has documentation proving that state authorities under the previous government used the powerful Pegasus spyware illegally and targeted a “very long” list of hacking victims.
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    1•4 months ago

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    Donald Tusk made the announcement during a news briefing alongside President Andrzej Duda, a political opponent aligned with the previous ruling party.

    Pegasus gives operators complete access to a mobile device, allowing them to extract passwords, photos, messages, contacts and browsing histories, and to activate the microphone and camera for real-time eavesdropping.

    Several Polish opponents of the previous government were targeted with Pegasus, a spyware program made by Israel’s NSO Group, according to findings by the University of Toronto’s nonprofit Citizen Lab that were exclusively reported by The Associated Press.

    “This vindicates the victims and the technical and forensic methods we used to confirm infections,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher with Citizen Lab who discovered the first cases of Pegasus use in Poland.

    The NSO Group has said that it only sells its spyware to legitimate government law enforcement and intelligence agencies vetted by Israel’s Defense Ministry for use against terrorists and criminals.

    Scott-Railton said Tusk’s confirmation “affirms the key role Apple’s threat notifications play in driving accountability for commercial spyware abuses.

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