Pegasus: the spyware technology that threatens democracy

with just a single text

it can bypass your phone's security and

install spyware that grants complete

access

to your device

it can access every message you've ever

sent it can access every message you've

ever received it can access every photo

every video every email it can turn on

your microphone

it can turn on the microphone even when

you're not using a phone call and just

record what you're doing in the room

it can turn on your camera it can record

what's on your screen

it can access your gps it can monitor

your location

and it can do all of this without you

ever knowing

the spyware technology that makes this

possible is called

pegasus pegasus is probably the most

advanced piece of spyware ever developed

it is effectively the most invasive form

of surveillance imaginable

any idea that you had that

aspects of your life could be kept

private and on the mobile phone

are wrong so if you

are someone who thinks that you're safe

because you use whatsapp which is

end-to-end encrypted

or you use signal it really is

meaningless once that pegasus is on your

phone

pegasus can infect both ios and android

while remaining virtually undetectable

so one of the ways that pegasus will

attack your phone is through what's

called a zero-day vulnerability

this is a vulnerability that the phone's

manufacturer doesn't yet know

exists

pegasus is the main product of a company

called nso group

which is an israeli surveillance company

so the people who are using this spyware

are government clients these will be

governments around the world that the

nso group have sold a copy of pegasus to

a guardian investigation can now reveal

widespread abuse of pegasus

by nso's government clients

the reason this investigation is so

extraordinary is that we

at the guardian have gained access

through forbidden stories

to a treasure trove tens of thousands of

records

the leaked records include the phone

numbers of thousands of people

who have been selected as potential

targets by governments with access to

pegasus

before we had an inkling that this

technology was being used

in abusive way but now the doors have

been just

thrown wide open and we have a much

greater insight

into the scale of the abuse that has

occurred

just because a number appears in this

list it doesn't mean it was definitely

hacked

but in some cases we've been able to go

and check we've done forensics

on the phone that the person was using

at the time

and in dozens of cases we found traces

of either an attempted

or a successful pegasus infection

what we know about nso group and what

they've said for years

is that this is a law enforcement tool

but i think what our investigations

really revealed is the extent to which

that is just a complete you know fantasy

narrative

the implications of this software being

used widely are

effectively an end to privacy for the

people who are targeted by it

that has very very serious ramifications

for how

people who have legitimate secrets which

is everyone

go about living their lives

[Music]

the most serious implications of

something like pegasus

is that it makes it much more unlikely

that a dictatorial regime will become a

democracy

because those were already regimes and

systems that were obsessive about trying

to monitor

their populations so they can control

them and prevent them from you know

rising up and overthrowing them

and this technology exponentially

increases your capacity to do that

i do believe it poses a greater threat

to

democracy it's exposing

that a lot of these technologies that we

think are meant to keep us safer on our

phones and even if we're somewhat aware

of it

that they're really not keeping us safe

you