Colombia’s interior minister said that his phone had been hacked by Israeli spyware Pegasus.
In an interview with W Radio, Interior Minister Armando Benedetti revealed the alleged Pegasus infection after receiving a “technical report and the electromagnetic evidence” from independent engineers, confirming his phone had been hacked.
The minister stressed that Pegasus’ presence forms a serious threat as the software can fully compromise a device.
Pegasus is a platform that can cost ten million, therefore only governments have it. It is software that activates on your phone with just a missed call, and it activates your phone as a microphone, as a camera; they activate it from anywhere in the world. And that is the problem with Pegasus: they have access to everything — every mirror, everything my phone carries ends up being displayed somewhere else.
Armando Benedetti
Pegasus is extremely difficult to detect as the software leaves no direct trace after deletion. Human rights organizations have developed software that allows experts to detect patterns associated with a Pegasus infection.
Benedetti said it was impossible to say who was behind the hack.
When W Radio asked Benedetti why he went to a private investigator instead of the State, the minister responded that, “I wouldn’t say it’s distrust, but rather a lack of faith, perhaps, in some state agency that could provide that service.”
Pegasus spyware has been a hot topic in Colombia since last year when Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that its producer, NSO Group, sold the spyware to the National Police for $11 million in 2021.
President Gustavo Petro accused the administration of his predecessor, former President Ivan Duque, of using the software to spy on his 2022 campaign.
According to Petro, this payment was confirmed by Israel’s financial intelligence unit IMPA in a classified report sent to its Colombian counterpart UIAF.
According to the document, Israel’s largest bank, Hapoalim, reported that a representative of Colombia’s police intelligence directorate DIPOL had deposited $5.5 million in cash in the NSO account on June 27.
The second cash deposit was made on September 22 of 2021, according to the alleged report.
A reporter of Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in July last year that, according to his sources, NSO Group was told that the money used to buy Pegasus had been seized from “drug cartels.”
The US Government said later that it had authorized the purchase.
The spyware is highly controversial due to its misuse by governments to target human rights activists, political opponents, journalists, etc.
