The espionage software allowed stealing messages and activating the microphone and camera of phones. Most of the victims are journalists from the El Faro news agency.

The cell phones of 37 journalists and activists behind the investigations against President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador got spied on for a year and a half. This information was verified and announced on January 12 by The Citizen Lab; the research and technological development laboratory for human rights and global security.

Citizen Lab researchers began an analysis of the phones last September after being contacted by two journalists from El Salvador who suspected their devices might get spied on. After the investigation, they found out that they had software installed on the cell phones, which could see and listen to them without their consent.

The software allowed viewing and stealing all kinds of data loaded on the cell phone, such as messages, photos, videos, contacts, and documents. In addition, the software could activate the microphone and the camera to hear and see what they said and did.

The victims were independent journalists and workers from six news agencies and three human rights groups from El Salvador. Although some of their names are kept private, the entity revealed that the main affected was the news outlet, El Faro. Citizen Lab stated that they found evidence that El Faro was under constant surveillance for at least 17 months between June 29, 2020, and November 23, 2021.

The Responsible for the Espionage of Journalists in El Salvador

Citizen Lab said it could not identify who was responsible for deploying the spyware, though it warned that all the victims spied on have one thing in common. The focus on editors, reporters, and activists point to a local client in El Salvador with a particular interest in their activities, said Scott-Railton, the organization’s lead investigator.

In turn, the Reuters news outlet highlighted that the spied on journalists and activists were investigating and publishing alleged irregularities by President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador. The news agency El Faro, for example, has been publishing journalistic reports revealing political scandals.

Citizen Lab reported that telephone espionage is not new in the country where bitcoin was made official last year as the official currency. It alleged that from 2017 to 2020, El Salvador was one of at least 25 countries using mass surveillance technology made by an Israeli company called Circles. It is unknown if the nation is still using it today.

The Circles system allows the view of data from the global telephone network. Unlike this one, the other espionage tool now discovered by Citizen Lab is called Pegasus, created by the company NSO Group Technologies. It is a technology that consists of installing software on specific devices to access their information and utilities.

NSO Keeps the Names of its Clients Unknown

According to Reuters, the company stated that it sells its products only to crime-fighting intelligence agencies and is not involved in surveillance operations.

Nayib Bukele’s communications office told the agency that the Salvadoran government was not a client of NSO. In addition, he transmitted from the presidency of El Salvador that they have indications that government officials are also victims of attacks.

By: Jenson Nuñez

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