by Rebecca White

Together with civil society partners the SHARE Foundation, Access Now, and the Citizen Lab, Amnesty International can reveal that sophisticated spyware is being used to target civil society in yet another European country  – Serbia.

Ahead of the COP28 climate conference, which begins in Dubai on 30 November, Rebecca White, Campaigner at Amnesty International’s Disrupting Surveillance Team, said:

Responding to the reports of Apple sending a new round of threat notifications globally, including to Indian opposition leaders and journalists, noting that their iPhones may have been targeted by “state-sponsored attackers”, Likhita Banerji, Amnesty International’s Researcher and Advisor on technology and human rights, said:

Shocking spyware attacks have been attempted against civil society, journalists, politicians and academics in the European Union (EU), USA and Asia, according to a major new investigation by Amnesty International. Among the targets of Predator spyware are United Nations (UN) officials, a Senator and Congressman in the USA and even the Presidents of the European Parliament and Taiwan.  The investigation is part of the ‘Predator Files’ project, in partnership with the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) and backed by additional in-depth reporting by Mediapart and Der Spiegel.

A new investigation into the global surveillance crisis by the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) media network, with technical assistance from Amnesty International’s Security Lab, today begins to reveal the shocking truth about how far the industry’s tentacles have spread and how ineffective EU regulation has been in controlling it. 

Responding to today’s vote by Members of the European Parliament urging the European Union (EU) to more tightly regulate the use, manufacture and trade of spyware, Rebecca White, campaigner at Amnesty Tech’s Disrupting Surveillance Team, said: 

Ahead of today’s opening of RightsCon, a summit on human rights in the digital age, which takes place in San José, Costa Rica, Rasha Abdul Rahim, Director of Amnesty Tech, said:  

A joint investigation has revealed that at least twelve Armenian public figures and officials, including journalists and human rights defenders were targeted with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware amid conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, between October 2020 and December 2022.  Evidence from the investigation, conducted with Amnesty International’s Security Lab, Access Now, the Citizen Lab, CyberHUB-AM, and an independent mobile security researcher Ruben Muradyan suggests that the conflict may have been the reason for the targeting.

A high-profile woman journalist in the Dominican Republic has been targeted with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, in the first confirmed case in the country, Amnesty International reveals in a new investigation published on World Press Freedom Day.

Responding to a report by the Financial Times that India is searching for alternative spyware technology to replace NSO Group’s Pegasus surveillance software, Donncha Ó Cearbhaill, Head of the Security Lab at Amnesty International, said:  

A sophisticated hacking campaign by a mercenary spyware company targeting Google’s Android operating system has been exposed by Amnesty International’s Security Lab.