No 10 ‘targeted’ with Israeli-made Pegasus spyware

Israeli-created Pegasus spyware was found on a device connected to the Downing Street telephone and messaging network, it has been claimed.

The security breach at Number 10  – which is being linked to a United Arab Emirates operator – is alleged to have taken place on 7 July 2020, as Boris Johnson approached his first year as PM.

The same spyware is also suspected to have infected phones connected to the Foreign Office on at least five occasions between July 2020 and June last year.

Operators in the UAE, Cyprus, Jordan and India were linked to these alleged breaches.

The Israeli company NSO Group developed the spyware product which is known to have the capability to infect billions of phones running either iOS or Android operating systems.

Once Pegasus is on a person’s device, it can copy messages that are sent or received.

The NSO Group has repeatedly claimed it keeps strict control over how its powerful software is used, and that staff can shut it down at any time or look at the information being collected.

Once Pegasus is on a person’s device, it can copy messages that are sent or received.

NSO have accused the groups involved in producing the latest allegations – Citizens Lab and Amnesty – of producing “inaccurate and unsubstantiated reports based on vague and incomplete information.”

A Downing Street spokesperson said they would not be commenting on the matter.

According to reports an investigative journalist working for the New Yorker magazine discovered the breach at Downing Street.

It is claimed officials from Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre were unable to locate the infected device and the nature of any data that may have been stolen was never determined.

“When we found the No10 case, my jaw dropped,” John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab centre at the University of Toronto, told the magazine.

Responding to claims that Pegasus was used to infect a Number 10 device and phones at the Foreign Office, an NSO Group spokesperson said: “The information raised regarding these allegations are, yet again, false and could not be related to NSO products for technological and contractual reasons.

“NSO continues to be targeted by a number of politically motivated advocacy organisations, like Citizens Labs and Amnesty, to produce inaccurate and unsubstantiated reports based on vague and incomplete information.

“We have repeatedly cooperated with governmental investigations, where credible allegations merit.”