Security News > 2022 > April > UK Prime Minister, Catalan groups 'targeted by NSO Pegasus spyware'

The Canadian research outfit also said it had identified at least 65 individuals linked with Catalan civil society groups in Spain who were targeted by, or infected with, surveillance software.

On Monday, Citizen Lab, a part of at the University of Toronto's Munk School, said it had found likely NSO Group Pegasus spyware infections on devices associated with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's office, 10 Downing Street, and on devices linked to the FCO, now called the FCDO, or the Foreign Commonwealth and Development office.

In November, 2021, a group of UK MPs urged Johnson to sanction NSO Group as the US has done.

NSO Group has been under fire from civil society groups for years for enabling authoritarian regimes to surveil and punish human rights advocates and journalists.

With regard to Catalan groups in Spain, Citizen Labs said it has identified at least 63 individuals targeted with Pegasus, and another four targeted with Windows surveillance software from Candiru, another Israel-based spyware maker that has also been sanctioned in the US. The victims, two of whom were linked both to Pegasus and Candiru, are said to include members of the European Parliament, legislators, jurists, members of civil society, and every Catalan president since 2010.

Amnesty International, which helped confirm Citizen Labs' findings, urged the Spanish government to say whether or not it is an NSO Group customer and called on the European Parliament to do more to stop human rights violations conducted using government-directed spyware.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/04/18/uk_catalan_spyware/