According to Reuters, The Citizen Lab discovered the alleged hack late last year. This lab studies spyware at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Human rights group Amnesty International assisted Citizen Lab with the investigation.
Citizen Lab has said that it has found evidence of phone intrusion between July 2020 and November 2021. However, the lab says it cannot tell who got Pegasus into the phones of journalists and activists in El Salvador. Countries all over the world have bought this software. Many of these have used it to spy on their journalists.
Citizen Lab released a report Wednesday on its findings.
At the same time, in a statement to Reuters, the Communications Office of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said that the government of El Salvador is not a customer of NSO Group Technologies, the company that develops Pegasus. It is reported that the government is investigating the alleged hacking. The government has said that it and its officials have also been victims of this espionage.
Any phone Pegasus enters, it steals encrypted messages, photos, contacts, documents and other sensitive information from the phone.
NSO Group keeps its client list confidential. He declined to say whether El Salvador was a Pegasus customer. The company said in a statement that it sells its products only to legitimate intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies. NSO has said that it does not condone those who misuse spyware to monitor activists and journalists. The contracts of some customers doing this have also been terminated.
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