The telephone number of the founder of VKontakte and Telegram Pavel Durov was on the sweat list …

Pavel Durov’s telephone number of the founder of VKontakte and Telegram was in the list of potential goals for surveillance using the PEGASUS of the Israeli company NSO Group, reports The Guardian as part of a joint investigation of PEGASUS Project. The publication notes that the number of Mr. Durov appeared on the list in early 2018 – approximately when he changed his official residence from the UK on the UAE.

The press secretary of the NSO Group said: “Any statement that the name on the list is necessarily related to PEGASUS is erroneous and false”, without answering the question of Paul Durov. At the same time, the The Guardian source in NSO Group made it clear that the surveillance of Mr. Durov did not conduct PEGASUS. The publication notes that it is impossible to reliably find out whether an attempt was made to install Pegasus on the phone without conducting a forensic examination.

The PEGASUS Project investigation conducted 17 publications with the technical assistance of Amnesty International. According to the authors of the investigation, in the list of phones that could be hacking, 50 thousand numbers, owners of 1 thousand of them were determined. Among the people included in the list, French President Emmann Macron was mentioned; After the publication, he instructed to conduct an investigation. The authors of the investigation also confirmed the hacking of at least 23 phones belonging to journalists.

Advertisement