Spyware: Why the booming surveillance tech industry is vulnerable to corruption and abuse | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Saturday
June 14, 2025

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 2025
Spyware: Why the booming surveillance tech industry is vulnerable to corruption and abuse

Tech

Reuters
22 July, 2021, 07:35 pm
Last modified: 22 July, 2021, 07:50 pm

Related News

  • Chinese internet giant Tencent interested in entering Bangladesh market
  • Yunus orders launch of Starlink's broadband within 90 days
  • Women in Bangladesh lag behind in engineering, tech jobs
  • How to stand out in a competitive tech job market
  • Meta's WhatsApp says spyware company Paragon targeted users in two dozen countries

Spyware: Why the booming surveillance tech industry is vulnerable to corruption and abuse

Reuters
22 July, 2021, 07:35 pm
Last modified: 22 July, 2021, 07:50 pm
Photo: The Conversation
Photo: The Conversation

The world's most sophisticated commercially-available spyware may be being abused, according to an investigation by 17 media organisations in ten countries. Intelligence leaks and forensic phone analysis suggests the surveillance software, called Pegasus, has been used to target and spy on the phones of human rights activists, investigative journalists, politicians, researchers and academics.

NSO Group, the Israeli cyber intelligence firm behind Pegasus, insists that it only licenses its spyware to vetted government clients in the name of combating transnational crime and terrorism. It has labelled reports from investigative journalists a "vicious and slanderous campaign" upon which it will no longer comment.

“Pegasus, a tool of suppression”

Yet the founder and chief executive of NSO Group previously admitted that "in some circumstances our customers might misuse the system." Given that the group has sold its spyware to a reported 40 countries, including some with poor records of corruption and human rights violations, it's alleged that Pegasus has been significantly misused, undermining the freedom of the press, freedom of thought and free and open democracies.

The Business Standard Google News Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel

These revelations are the latest indication that the spyware industry is out of control, with licensed customers free to spy on political and civilian targets as well as suspected criminals. We may be heading to a world in which no phone is safe from such attacks.

Pegasus is regarded as the most advanced spyware on the market. It can infiltrate victims' devices without their even having to click a malicious link – a so-called "zero-click attack". Once inside, the power Pegasus possesses to transform a phone into a surveillance beacon is astounding.

It immediately sets to work copying messages, pictures, videos and downloaded content to send to the attacker. As if that's not insidious enough, Pegasus can record calls and track a target's location while independently and secretly activating a phone's camera and microphone. With this capability, an infected phone acts like a fly on the wall, seeing, hearing and reporting back the intimate and sensitive conversations that it watches continuously.

There's previous evidence of Pegasus misuse. It was implicated in the alleged hacking of Jeff Bezos' phone by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia in 2018. The following year, it was revealed that several Indian lawyers and activists had been targeted by a Pegasus attack via WhatsApp.

The new revelations suggest that Pegasus was used to watch Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez and 50 members of his inner circle – including friends, family, doctors, and aides – when he was an opposition politician. Pegasus has also been linked to the surveillance of Rahul Gandhi, the current political rival to Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.

Israel eyes spyware export curbs; Macron, Merkel troubled by abuse reports

A Pegasus infiltration has also now been found among phones belonging to the family and friends of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and there are indications that Pegasus may also have been used by a Mexican NSO client to target the Mexican journalist Cecilio Pineda Birto, who was murdered in 2017.

Although the power of Pegasus is shocking, spyware in its various forms is far from a new phenomenon. Basic spyware can be traced back to the early 1990s. Now it's a booming industry with thousands of eager buyers.

At the base of the spyware industry are the lesser snooping tools, sold for as little as $70 (£51) on the dark web, which can remotely access webcams, log computer keystrokes and harvest location data. The use of such spyware by stalkers and abusive partners is a growing, concerning issue.

Is Bangladesh still infected by Israeli spyware Pegasus?

Then of course there's the global surveillance estate that Edward Snowden lifted the curtain on in 2013. His leaks revealed how surveillance tools were being used to amass a volume of citizens' personal data that seemed to go well beyond the brief of the intelligence agencies using them.

In 2017, we also learned how a secret team of elite programmers at the US National Security Agency had developed an advanced cyber-espionage weapon called Eternal Blue, only for it to be stolen by the hacker collective Shadow Brokers and sold on the dark web. It was this spyware that would later be used as the backbone of the infamous 2017 Wannacry ransomware attack, which targeted the NHS and hundreds of other organisations.

When the Snowden leaks were published, many were shocked to learn of the scale of surveillance that digital technologies had enabled. But this mass spying was at least developed and conducted within state intelligence agencies, who had some legitimacy as agents of espionage.

We're no longer debating the right of the state to violate our own rights to privacy. The Pegasus revelations show we've arrived in a new, uncomfortable reality where highly sophisticated spyware tools are sold on an open market. To be under no illusion, we're referring here to an industry of for-profit malware developers creating and selling the same types of tools – and sometimes the very same tools – used by "bad hackers" to bring businesses and government organisations to their knees.

In the wake of the Pegasus revelations, Edward Snowden has called for an international spyware ban, stating that we're moving towards a world where no device is safe. That will certainly be the case if Pegasus meets the same fate as Eternal Blue, with its source code finding its way onto the dark web for use by criminal hackers.

We've only just begun to fully contemplate the full implications of Pegasus on our collective privacy and democracy. Without transparency, we have no sense of how and under what circumstances Pegasus is licensed, who has the authorisation to use Pegasus once it's licensed, under what circumstances a license may be revoked, or what international regulations are in place to police against its abuse. Evidence suggests that Pegasus has been misused and greater accountability and oversight is needed. We must also seek to rekindle important debates around enforceable controls on the creation and sale of corporate spyware. Without this, the threat that Pegasus and future spyware tools pose to privacy will not be limited to the high-profile targets that have so far been revealed but will be a threat to us all.

Top News / World+Biz

Spyware / tech / Pegasus / NSO Group

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Security personnel react at an impact site following a missile attack from Iran on Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, June 13. REUTERS/Itay Cohen
    Over 80 killed on both sides as Iran, Israel continue missile strikes
  • Logo of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. Photo: Collected
    Joint press briefing by Yunus, Tarique a breach of political norms, Jamaat-e-Islami says questioning CA's partiality
  • Illustration: TBS
    From Greta Thunberg's book to an exquisite pen: What Tarique gifted CA Yunus

MOST VIEWED

  • Energy adviser Fouzul Kabir Khan with other government officials during a visit to Sylhet gas field on 13 June 2025. Photo: TBS
    I would disconnect gas supply to every home in Dhaka if I could: Energy adviser
  • BNP Acting Chairperson Tarique Rahman and Chief Adviser  Muhammad Yunus meet at Dorchester Hotel in London, UK on 13 June 2025. Photo: CA Press Wing
    National polls possible in 2nd week of February, agree Yunus, Tarique in 'historic' London meeting
  • Rescuers work at the scene of a damaged building in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 13, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
    Tehran retaliates with 100 drones after Israel strikes Iran's nuclear facilities, kills military leaders
  • From fact-checker to fact-checked: CA Press Wing’s turn in the hot seat
    From fact-checker to fact-checked: CA Press Wing’s turn in the hot seat
  • UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus
    Disclosure of unconfirmed Yunus-Starmer meeting shows ‘diplomatic imprudence’: Analysts
  • Flight AI 379 had landed. File Photo: Hindustan Times
    Day after Ahmedabad crash, Air India flight makes emergency landing in Thailand after bomb threat

Related News

  • Chinese internet giant Tencent interested in entering Bangladesh market
  • Yunus orders launch of Starlink's broadband within 90 days
  • Women in Bangladesh lag behind in engineering, tech jobs
  • How to stand out in a competitive tech job market
  • Meta's WhatsApp says spyware company Paragon targeted users in two dozen countries

Features

Photos: Collected

Kurtis that make a great office wear

22h | Mode
Among pet birds in the country, lovebirds are the most common, and they are also the most numerous in the haat. Photo: Junayet Rashel

Where feathers meet fortune: How a small pigeon stall became Dhaka’s premiere bird market

2d | Panorama
Illustration: Duniya Jahan/ TBS

Forget Katy Perry, here’s Bangladesh’s Ruthba Yasmin shooting for the moon

3d | Features
File photo of Eid holidaymakers returning to the capital from their country homes/Rajib Dhar

Dhaka: The city we never want to return to, but always do

5d | Features

More Videos from TBS

Tehran-Tel Aviv devastated by counterattacks

Tehran-Tel Aviv devastated by counterattacks

37m | TBS World
How ready is the new IRGC chief to give a befitting reply to Israel?

How ready is the new IRGC chief to give a befitting reply to Israel?

1h | TBS World
Iran says nuclear talks with US ‘meaningless’ after Israel attack

Iran says nuclear talks with US ‘meaningless’ after Israel attack

2h | TBS News Updates
CA Yunus returns home from London

CA Yunus returns home from London

2h | TBS Today
EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Advertisement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2025
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net