A prominent human rights activist in Morocco has been targeted with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware in recent months, Amnesty International can reveal.

In this letter, dated 15 February 2022, Amnesty International responds to the questions posed by the Technical Committee appointed by the Supreme Court of India to investigate the use of Pegasus in India, received by email on 7 February 2022.

A joint investigation by Access Now and the Citizen Lab has identified the use of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware against journalists and members of civil society organizations in El Salvador on a massive scale. Technical experts from the Amnesty International Security Lab have peer-reviewed the report and independently verified forensic evidence showing that Pegasus has been misused in the country.

Confirming that Amnesty International has independently confirmed that Pegasus spyware was used to hack Polish senator, Krzysztof Brejza, when he was running the opposition’s 2019 parliamentary election campaign, Amnesty International Poland’s Director Anna Błaszczak, said:

Amnesty International’s Security Lab has confirmed that at least four Kazakhstani civil society activists have had their mobile devices infected with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. A forensic analysis shows that all four activists had been targeted and their devices infected from as early as June 2021, Amnesty International said today.

This document is a joint technical report by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab and Amnesty International’s Security Lab reviewing Front Line Defenders’ technical research.

Spokespeople available 

In response to false allegations on social media and inaccurate media stories in relation to the Pegasus Project, Amnesty International issued the following statement:

Hungarian journalism non-profit Direkt36 today published a major investigation into the use of NSO Group’s notorious Pegasus spyware in Hungary, revealing that the phones of more than 300 Hungarian nationals were identified as possible targets for infection. Experts from Amnesty International were able to confirm several cases where the spyware was successfully installed.

New evidence uncovered by the Pegasus Project has revealed that the phone numbers for 14 heads of state, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Pakistan’s Imran Khan and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, as well as hundreds of government officials, were selected as people of interest by clients of spyware company NSO Group. 

New evidence uncovered by Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories has revealed a massive wave of attacks by cyber surveillance company NSO Group’s customers on iPhones, potentially affecting thousands of Apple users worldwide.   

New evidence uncovered by Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories has revealed that Rwandan authorities used NSO Group’s spyware to potentially target more than 3,500 activists, journalists and politicians. It was also used to infect the phone of Carine Kanimba, Paul Rusesabagina’s daughter, of Hotel Rwanda fame.