Jordanian officials and journalists urge probe into hacking of their phones by Israeli spy company

Dozens of Jordanian politicians and activists targeted by the Israeli surveillance spyware, Pegasus, have called on their government to investigate how their phones were hacked.
 

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, officials and activists said up to 200 Jordanians had been targeted by Pegasus - software which has been found to hack smartphones and harvest data including photos, emails and voice messages, and turn devices into a tracking and monitoring device.
 

Hussein Jiddi, a security information engineer, said the personal phone of Dima Tahboub, a member of the royal commission for the modernisation of political systems, was among those targeted by Pegasus.

"After nearly 200 Jordanians received a notice from Apple that their phones were hacked, we checked the cell phones of a number of political and media personalities and discovered that the phones of Murad Addaileh, the secretary-general of the Islamic Action Front; journalist Husam Gharibeh; Badi Rafayyeh, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood; and Noor Abu Ghosh, a social media activist, were also affected by the spyware," he said.
 

NSO has been involved in numerous scandals in recent years and has faced a deluge of criticism over reports that its software has been used to target political dissidents, activists and journalists around the world.

The company says its Pegasus software helps fight crime, but investigators have found it on the phones of journalists and dissidents.

Speaking to Middle East Eye, Tahboub, a leader at the Islamic Action Front, said she suspected Israel was behind the hack.

"I can't separate the attacks on my political positions with this Zionist programming. There is nothing that I am hiding. I support totally the right of the Palestinian people to resist until Palestine is liberated."

Tahboub, who was active in a commission set up by King Abdullah last June, with the aim of reforming electoral and party laws, said it was crucial the Jordanian government protected politicians, activists and others from being targeted in the future.

"The government must not be quiet and must open an investigation that aims at finding out what information was taken and whether or not the royal court's network was in fact infiltrated despite the fact that there is a peace agreement with the enemy," she said.