What is the Pegasus spyware scandal and how is Singapore affected?

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SINGAPORE: On Jul 18, major news outlets worldwide published an investigation into a massive data leak that showed rights activists, journalists and politicians around the world were targeted by authoritarian governments using hacking software sold by an Israeli surveillance company.

Rwanda, Morocco, India and Hungary have denied using Pegasus to hack the phones of individuals named in the list, while the rest did not respond to requests for comment, the Guardian report said.NSO has rejected the claims arising from the data leak, but said it would"continue to investigate all credible claims of misuse and take appropriate action".

"Some proofs can even be faked and I'm sure that if you really focus on this, you can find one way or another to become a legitimate customer of the NSO Group. And if you have enough money, you can buy these tools they offer." Because Singapore hosts a number of data centres and is a regional Internet communication hub, Mr Kamluk said, the findings could have pointed to Singapore's Internet infrastructure instead of actual victims living here.While earlier versions of the software used targeted spear-phishing attacks to gain access to a phone, it has since been made far more efficient, and is able to infect a device even if nothing is clicked on.

"These vulnerabilities, they don't plant them on purpose, for sure, but it's in the fundamental code of our human nature to make mistakes," he said."We will see new ones come and appear, and Apple will patch again the moment they find this." "Of course, NSO Group will improve," he said."So, everything that is detected right now – all these signs and traces that were picked up by Amnesty International and Citizen Lab – will be changed so that this tool will be blind to future versions of diagnosis ."

Two of the targeted phones were owned by Mr Szabolcs Panyi and Mr Andras Szabo, investigative reporters in Hungary who regularly cover government corruption. Perpetrators of illegal tapping must also be prosecuted, Mr Didier Reynders told the European parliament. Members of the public who suspect that their mobile device has been infected with spyware, including Pegasus, are advised to lodge a police report or report the incident to the Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team, she said in a written reply.

 

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