A man walks past the logo of the Israeli firm NSO Group at one of its branches in the Arava Desert of Israel on July 22, 2021. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Earlier this year, an international reporting project based on a list of 50,000 phone numbers suspected of being compromised by the Pegasus spyware program revealed just how widespread digital espionage has become. Pegasus, which is built and managed by the Israeli firm NSO Group, turns mobile phones into surveillance tools by granting an attacker full access to a device’s data. It is among the most advanced pieces of cyber espionage software ever invented, and its targets include journalists, activists, and politicians. Of the 14 numbers belonging to world leaders on the list of numbers suspected of being targeted, half were African. They included two sitting heads of state—South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa and Morocco’s King Mohammed VI —along with the current or former prime ministers of Egypt, Burundi, Uganda, Morocco, and Algeria.
That African leaders are both victims and users of malware systems such as Pegasus should come as little surprise. Governments on the continent have for some time relied on Pegasus and other spyware to track terrorists and criminals, snoop on political opponents, and spy on citizens. However, recent reporting about NSO Group’s surveillance tools—dubbed the “Pegasus Project”— makes clear that governments across Africa are also using spyware for purposes of international espionage. And these tools are being used in ways that risk worsening authoritarian tendencies and raise questions about whether security services are being properly h ..
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