Filenews 27 July 2021 - by Xenia Turki
Activists, journalists, lawyers, opposition and dissidents around the world are closely monitored by governments thanks to Pegasus software created by the Israeli company NSO Group. The revelations last week of 17 international media outlets, including Le Monde newspapers, the Guardian and the Washington Post, brought back to the fore the unfair use of technology by unscrupulous individuals and governments.
Cyprus appears to be involved in the surveillance scandal. According to information published by Deutsche Welle, Cyprus together with Bulgaria appears to be the two Countries of the European Union from which mobile phone monitoring software was purchased and exported. Although the Israeli NSO no longer maintains offices on the island, it is very likely that Nicosia will be asked to provide answers about its control over the movement of Pegasus.
In a question to the European Commission, Dutch MEP Sofia in't Veld asked for information on the possibility that the European Union had financed NSO activities in Cyprus or Bulgaria and an investigation into the control exercised by the two Member States on compliance with European legislation on the export of software. In particular, the second question to the Commission highlights the possible responsibility of the Cypriot authorities for the movement of Pegasus within the Union, since its supply is treated as military, i.e. requiring increased control care for each transaction of its purchase and export.
Commenting on the information, Alexandros Kanikidis, a security expert at Odyssey, said it was not the first time our country had allegedly been involved in such cases. As he pointed out, it is sufficient to remember that in 2019 there was information about eavesdropping and breaches of sensitive personal data by the Israeli company Wispear as well. There are reports, Alexandros Kanikidis pointed out, that there may be a correlation through the NSO, which creates such tools, but no one can say with certainty that the software has been used by the Cypriot government. "Such technologies are highly advanced and depend on the ethical barriers that a government has if it will use them and how. And let us not always forget that a technology is not in itself moral or immoral but everything depends on its use."
What Cyprus is accused of is helping to smooth the operation of this software. But it is simply some journalistic information, for which there is no official information and very difficult to exist, said Alexandros Kanikidis, stressing that we may never be able to find out the truth about exactly what happened. It is worth noting that according to reports, last year in Limassol the NSO demonstrated Pegasus to officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Although the NSO no longer has offices in Cyprus, our country may eventually be forced to provide answers.
HOW THE ACCOUNT WORKS
There are several ways of how a mobile can be "infected". Based on what became known up to Pegasus, it can infect a mobile remotely, without doing anything i.e. the user can implant the malware. The other method is by sending a message either to the email or to an application and the installation is done without even the recipient noticing.
Protective measures
What has become clear, the Odyssey expert said, is that we should not be complacent but constantly be vigilant about protecting our devices and, by extension, our data. If someone wants to check if their phone is infected they can do so from the website https://github.com/mvt-project/mvt and accordingly take the necessary measures.
But the most important thing for a user to do to protect their mobile phone is to have the latest updates from the manufacturer, to use antivirus, to maintain strong passwords and of course not to leak their passwords anywhere and to be very careful when opening their emails or when navigating the internet. Most of the time the attack starts with an act of social engineering, that is, when hackers try to trick us into accepting a link, to click, somewhere we should not, pointed out Alexandros Kaniklidis. "What is often said is if you go on a trip to a foreign country and you find yourself in front of a dark and narrow alley and you don't know what's there, you won't go in and look for what's going on, but you'll walk away. So is the use we have to make on the internet or on our mobile phone when faced with material, which we don't know what it is," he stressed.
