AP Exclusive: Polish opposition senator hacked with spyware

By VANESSA GERA and FRANK BAJAK

December 23, 2021

Polish Senator Krzysztof Brejza on the night of parliamentary elections on Oct. 13, 2019. An investigation by The Associated Press and Citizen Lab, a watchdog at the University of Toronto, has found that Brejza's mobile phone was hacked with military-grade Pegasus spyware nearly three dozen times in 2019 as he ran an opposition campaign to unseat the right-wing populist government in parliamentary elections. The ruling party won a slim majority and Brejza is convinced that the hacking of his phone gave it an unfair advantage. (AP Photo)
Polish Senator Krzysztof Brejza on the night of parliamentary elections on Oct. 13, 2019 (AP Photo)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish Sen. Krzysztof Brejza’s mobile phone was hacked with sophisticated spyware nearly three dozen times in 2019 when he was running the opposition’s campaign against the right-wing populist government in parliamentary elections, an internet watchdog found.

Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone — then doctored in a smear campaign — were aired by state-controlled TV in the heat of that race, which the ruling party narrowly won. With the hacking revelation, Brejza now questions whether the election was fair.

It’s the third finding by the University of Toronto’s nonprofit Citizen Lab that a Polish opposition figure was hacked with Pegasus spyware from the Israeli hacking tools firm NSO Group. Brejza’s phone was digitally broken in to 33 times from April 26, 2019, to Oct. 23, 2019, said Citizen Lab researchers, who have been tracking government abuses of NSO malware for years.

The other two hacks were identified earlier this week after a joint Citizen Lab-Associated Press investigation. All three victims blame Poland’s government, which has refused to confirm or deny whether it ordered the hacks or is a client of NSO Group. State security services spokesman Stanislaw Zaryn insisted Thursday that the government does not wiretap illegally and obtains court orders in “justified cases.” He said any suggestions the Polish government surveils for political ends were false.

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WhatsApp flaw let spies take control with calls alone







whatsapp nsoMay 14, 2019

By FRANK BAJAK and RAPHAEL SATTER

Spyware crafted by a sophisticated group of hackers-for-hire took advantage of a flaw in the popular WhatsApp communications program to remotely hijack dozens of phones without any user interaction.

The Financial Times identified the hacking group as Israel’s NSO Group, which has been widely condemned for selling surveillance tools to repressive governments.

WhatsApp all but confirmed the identification, describing hackers as “a private company that has been known to work with governments to deliver spyware.” A spokesman for the Facebook subsidiary later said: “We’re certainly not refuting any of the coverage you’ve seen.”

WhatsApp has released a new version of the app containing a fix.

The spyware did not directly affect the end-to-end encryption that makes WhatsApp chats and calls private. It merely used a bug in the WhatsApp software as an infection vehicle. The malware allows spies to effectively take control of a phone — remotely and surreptitiously controlling its cameras and microphones and vacuuming up personal and location data. Encryption is worthless once a phone’s operating system has been violated.

Hackers are always looking for flaws in apps and operating systems that they can exploit to deliver spyware. State-run intelligence agencies including the U.S. National Security Agency invest tens of millions of dollars on it. Indeed, Google’s ProjectZero bug-hunting team scoured WhatsApp last year looking for vulnerabilities but did not find any. Instead, it was WhatsApp’s security team that found the flaw.

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