The government of President Enrique Peña Nieto denies that they had targeted journalists and activists spy on. However, the used Spyware is sold only to governments. And motives it is not missing.
Program Director Mario Patrón, and the well-known journalist and book author Carmen Aristegui
For Norma Trujillo cyber espionage is no longer a real Problem: “It is often the case that your phone is being monitored, that you pursue your activities in social networks or sends an E-mail to your mailbox,” said the Mexican journalist in the interview-on the outskirts of the Global Media Forum in Bonn.
The constant feeling of being spied on, aggravating your everyday work considerably, says Trujillo: Either you had to take elaborate measures to work around the Monitor and to protect sensitive information, such as the identity of sources. Or you had to reset sensitive topics, to put themselves and their informants in the focus of state investigators.
Not surprised about the allegations: the Mexican journalist Norma Trujillo
She has already experienced, that Hacker’s research and investigation have deleted the relevant information and files of journalists ‘ computers. The Disappearance of evidence, it makes you to publish impossible-sensitive revelations, without running the risk that you have to stand in court for it.
Who was behind the cyber attacks, could suspect the journalists. Now, however, Norma Trujillo feels confirmed: According to research by the U.S. newspaper “The New York Times” (NYT) should be monitored with prominent journalists, human rights lawyers and anti-corruption activists in Mexico specifically, and from the highest authority: Hence there is hardly any other possibility than that the government of a Latin American country or one of your secret services have carried out the face-up Monitoring.
Text messages with an infected Link
Apparently, a highly advanced spying software that came with the spying, which has acquired the Mexican state officially, in order to combat organized crime and terrorists. Exactly, this Software could prove to cyber experts of the Cotizen-laboratory of the University of Toronto on the mobile phones of prominent government critics.
Among them, lawyers for the human rights organization Centro Program, devoted to the case of the 43 disappeared students, and activists, the anti-corruption law brought on the way, the approved then by the Senate and the President adopt.
The well-known Investigative journalist Carmen Aristegui should belong to the espionage victims. Among other things, their research brought about a private Villa, the Mexican President’s wife, head of state, Peña Nieto is a multi-million dollar corruption scandal.
The Investigative journalist Carmen Aristegui and her Smartphone Was spied on by the state of by Spyware?
A group of interested parties, including the referred to Aristegui and Program Director, Mario Patrón (title picture) to have promptly filed a complaint with the Mexican Prosecutor’s office, on Wednesday (21.6.) announced that they have initiated the appropriate investigations.
In the case of Mexico, the text was sent by the NYT, according to the news, with a Link to multiple people, the smart phones of the victims were then infected with a Spyware by the name of Pegasus. The is a product of the Israeli firm NSO Group, and disclose all the available information: location, contacts, recorded calls, E-Mails, Chat messages, etc. Also access to the camera and the microphone.
Clear denial against strong evidence
The Mexican government rejected the allegations: You’ve used the Software only in the appropriate context. Solid evidence to the contrary to be missing in the future.
Because Pegasus is structured in a way that cannot be traced, and from whom or from where the Spyware is applied and where the data is to be transferred. Not even the Software developer NSO Group, it means he can find out who is behind the attacks.
Call for justice: four journalists were killed in 2017 in Mexico, according to reporters without borders.
However, the Software is sold exclusively to governments, and the technology can only be used by those in authority, from which it was installed. This makes it almost impossible that cyber criminals were, spying on the persons referred to.
Spying is a common practice
Since the publication of the NYT article, the espionage affair has the Mexican media, although the intimidation of journalists and activists in Mexico, is not a novelty – be it by state organs, organised crime or powerful interest groups.
According to the journalist, Norma Trujillo showed little surprised: “It is a common strategy of the Mexican government.”
Also, Luis Fernando García, Director of R3D, a Mexican network for the protection of digital rights, reported from 15 other Bespitzelungs-cases from the recent past, and speaks of a “systematic attack on the Mexican civil society”. Research by R3D, according to the Latin American country is also the biggest buyer of Malware, “Galileo”. Regional governments in Mexico have acquired the Software by the Italian company Hacking Team, even without a warrant to Monitor private communications.
Norma Trujillo knows a countless number of cases in which colleagues found signs that their computers hacked and were searched. Alone in the Mexican state of Veracruz, where the journalist for the newspaper “La Jornada”is working, dedicate yourself to around 2000 government employees of the Monitoring in the network.
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