Attila Asz\u00f3di, former State Secretary in charge of Hungary\u2019s nuclear power plant expansion has also been selected as a target for Pegasus spyware that is capable of hacking even the most modern smartphones, according to the leaked database of phone numbers selected for targeting by clients of NSO, the developer of Pegasus.<\/p>\n
Asz\u00f3di became a target at the end of 2018 when he was still an official in the Hungarian government but already had a series of conflicts with his superior, Minister J\u00e1nos S\u00fcli, for opposing measures that would have disrupted the project\u2019s timetable.<\/p>\n
Asz\u00f3di was selected as a target on his official governmental mobile phone which he used for dealing with official matters. He had to return his phone when he was dismissed in January 2019, shortly after being targeted.<\/p>\n
Paris-based investigative outlet Forbidden Stories and human rights organization Amnesty International had access to the database of around 50 thousand phone numbers selected by NSO clients in several countries. Forbidden Stories shared this database with 16 other news organizations and the international group of journalists analyzed the numbers. Direkt36 was the only Hungarian partner in the investigation.<\/p>\n
If a phone number appears in this database, it does not necessarily mean that the target was actually attacked with Pegasus and that the hacking was successful. However, AI\u2019s technical forensic analyses of targets\u2019 mobile phones have proved in multiple cases that devices selected for targeting were indeed hacked with NSO\u2019s tool.<\/p>\n
Pegasus takes advantage of so-called zero-day vulnerabilities of softwares running on mobile phones, meaning built-in flaws that not even developers and manufacturers are aware of. This not only means that targets\u2019 phone calls could have been wiretapped through these breaches, but even their most sensitive information, for example, emails and other messages as well as photos and videos could have been accessed.<\/p>\n
Asz\u00f3di did not want to comment on his targeting. Since he is not in the possession of that phone any longer, it was not possible to have it examined by security experts.<\/p>\n
Since the publications of the Pegasus case no representative of the Hungarian government clearly denied Hungary being among the clients of NSO or targeting the people we have so far reported about. A former Hungarian intelligence officer told Direkt36 earlier that according to his information national security services started using Pegasus in 2018, while a former NSO employee confirmed to one of the partners of the international investigative journalism consortium that Hungary purchased the Pegasus service.<\/p>\n