London, Oct 10, 2019 – Two rights activists in Morocco have been targeted by surveillance technology developed by an Israeli firm that enables the sender to seize near-full control of mobile devices, Amnesty International said Thursday. The rights group said academic and activist Maati Monjib and human rights lawyer Abdessadak El Bouchattaoui had received SMS messages containing malicious links through spyware developed by Israel’s NSO Group. Clicking on the links would have allowed “the sender to obtain near-total control of the phone” by secretly installing Pegasus software, Amnesty said. The rights group alleged that the same technology was used to target one of its own staff and a Saudi rights activist in June 2018. “NSO Group is known to only sell its spyware to government intelligence and law enforcement agencies, raising serious concerns that Moroccan security agencies are behind the surveillance,” Amnesty said.

Source: The North Africa Journal October 10, 2019 17:26 UTC