Chine Foreign Ministry has issued a public statement condemning the distribution and usage of Pegasus Spyware surveillance software by various countries. It has also accused United States & NATO for circulating misinformation that the Chinese intelligence was funding hacking groups to launch cyber attacks on the west.
Zhao Lijian, the official spokesperson from the Foreign Ministry of China, denounced the practice of cyber surveillance and termed it as an issue that is acting as a challenge to most countries in the world.
Now, to those uninitiated, Israel-based NSO Group developed Pegasus surveillance software that was meant for government organizations to spy on criminal suspects. Meaning the software can be used by the fed to conduct espionage on mobiles or other computing devices to steal data such as pictures, videos, call records, social media posts, user passwords, emails, contacts lists, audio files, and browsing history and can also record the voices that are in the phone’s vicinity- even when the user is not using the device i.e. in idle mode.
However, when technology falls into the wrong hands, it can spell a doomsday to entire humankind. Similarly, Pegasus surveillance malware seems to have fallen into the wrong hands as some hacking group/s were seen distributing and targeting politicians, journalists, C-level banking staff, sports person and other celebrities to know details of their secret lives.
This includes all victims from countries like Azerbaijan, Turkey, Bahrain, Hungary, India, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Europe, Togo, and UAE.
Zhao wants all countries to maintain mutual respect, equality, and mutual benefits and to engage in talks and cooperation required to mitigate or block the threats.
Cybersecurity experts from around the world are demanding a high level independent investigation on why and how Pegasus software is being used and propagated and which government is funding such events that can trigger cyber warfare between nations.
