60 minutes rewind
tonight we'll take you inside the
growing shadowy global market of cyber
espionage
we look specifically at a controversial
israeli company called the nso group
valued at nearly a billion dollars that
says it developed a hacking tool that
can break into just about any smartphone
on earth
nso licenses this software called
pegasus to intelligence and law
enforcement agencies worldwide
so they can infiltrate the encrypted
phones and apps of criminals and
terrorists
problem is this same tool can also be
deployed by a government to crush
dissent
and so it is the pegasus has been linked
to human rights abuses unethical
surveillance and even to the notoriously
brutal murder of the saudi arabian
critic jamal khashoggi
headquartered in the israeli city of
herzeglia nso group operates in strict
secrecy and i said to them but
co-founder and ceo shalev julio has been
forced out of the shadows and not into a
good light accused of selling pegasus to
saudi arabia despite its abysmal record
on human rights
and the word is that you sold pegasus to
them and then they turned it
around to get khashoggi khashoggi murder
is horrible
really horrible
and therefore when
i first heard
there are accusations that our
technology been used on jamal khashoggi
or on his relatives i started an
immediate check about it and i can tell
you very clear
we had nothing to do with this horrible
murder it's been reported
that you yourself went to riyadh in
saudi arabia
you yourself sold
pegasus to the saudis for 55 million
dollars don't believe newspapers
is that a denial
no
pegasus is so expensive because it lets
authorities do what they long couldn't
break into smart phones remotely making
everything in them completely visible
all emails contacts and texts
new old encrypted or not
pegasus allows detectives and agents to
track locations listen into and record
conversations
basically turning the phone against its
user
in the company's eight year history they
have never let cameras in but they
wanted to show us they're like any
high-tech company
playstations
and pilates
but there was a lot we couldn't show
notice no faces
the work is top secret and some
employees are ex-military intelligence
and mossad
pegasus is such a sensitive spy tool nso
has to get approval before it can be
licensed to any client let alone saudi
arabia from the israeli defense ministry
as though it's an arms deal
why would the government of israel
want
you know what seems to be an enemy
to have this technology i'm not going to
talk about specific customers but
can can you say that you won't and
haven't
sold pegasus
to a country that is known
to violate human rights and imprisoned
journalists and
go after activists
i only say that we are selling pegasus
in order to prevent crime and terror
penetrating an iphone was an issue in
the terrorist attack in san bernardino
california in 2015. right now we have
one down outside the car
the fbi said it couldn't get into the
shooter's phone and apple refused to
help over privacy concerns an issue that
had come up before
intelligence agencies came to us and say
we do have a problem with the new
smartphones
we cannot longer get
valuable intelligence they were
encrypted
exactly how many lives do you think
pegasus has saved ten of thousands of
people
really yes
julio referred us to the head of a
western european intelligence agency who
off camera confirmed that pegasus is a
game changer in foiling attacks by
european jihadists as well as shutting
down drug and human trafficking rings
but here's the question
how often has pegasus also been used to
go after a government's critics
if you were in saudi arabia you'd be in
jail well i don't think i will be in
jail i don't think anyone will find my
body like what your jamal khashoggi has
faced is a saudi comic living in london
who has a popular youtube satire show
that takes aim at crown prince mohammed
bin salman
last year as the regime was kidnapping
locking up and torturing saudi
dissidents
ghanam says he and other critics abroad
got text messages like this fake dhl
notice that if clicked would download
pegasus onto their phones so they could
be spied on and you clicked on it of
course
yeah who's sending me a package now
pegasus
is designed to catch terrorists
so who defines the terrorists do you
think i am a trottest
or do i look like a tourist i don't know
i don't know what a terrorist looks like
yeah but i mean the problem is the
saudis consider people asking for
freedom of speech as terrorists they
consider anybody who is a threat to
their
regime
is a terrorist what do you do when your
customer has a definition of terrorist
that isn't our definition in some
countries the opposition
are terrorists
no such thing
every customer that we sold has a very
clear definition of what terrorism
is and it's basically bad guys doing bad
things in order to kill innocent people
in order to change the political agenda
i never met
with a customer that told me that
oppositions are terrorists well they're
not going to tell you but if they will
act like that they will not going to be
a customer there are more than 100
countries
100 countries that we will never sell
our technologies to the problem is
there's there are not proper controls
around how this technology is being used
based out of the ron diebert heads
citizen lab a human rights watchdog at
the university of toronto where
researchers like computer scientist bill
marzak say they figured out a way to
detect if a phone has been targeted by
pegasus which they did in the case of
ghanam al-massarir and other saudi
dissidents
this technology is being used by
autocratic dictators who can mount
global cyber espionage operations simply
by purchasing the technology so you are
saying that once they sell this
technology once the israelis sell it
they know how it's being used
well
the question is do they care to look i
think if they cared to look they would
have the opportunity to see how it was
being used
but shalev julio says nso is unable to
see who their clients are targeting
only after there's an allegation of
misuse can nso demand target data in
order to investigate
and i can tell you that
in the last
eight years that the company exists
we only had
real three cases
of misuse three cases out of thousands
of cases of saving lives three were the
misuse and those
people or those organizations that
misused the system they are no longer a
customer they will never be a customer
again
the first case we uncovered in mexico
but citizen lab says it was able to find
many more cases
25 in mexico alone where pegasus was
used to target political rivals
reporters and civil rights lawyers
they also say they found the pegasus
link on the phone of this human rights
activist ahmed mansour from the united
arab emirates i think that people that
are not part of criminal or terrorist
activities have nothing to worry about
tommy shahar nso's co-president says
pegasus is used with surgical precision
it's not mass surveillance technology
this is really for the bin ladens of the
world but the reason
that your company
has been criticized and the reason that
we're here doing this interview is
because countries have used your
technology
on human rights activists
on journalists there are allegations
that are being brought there are reports
that were said and we take every such
allegation very seriously and we look
into it nothing has been proven
the story will continue after this
to protect against misuse she says nso
has three layers of vetting potential
customers
one by the israeli defense ministry
a second by its own business ethics
committee
and thirdly
our contractual agreements
have our customers signed that the only
intended use of the system will be
against terrorism they sign come on
you have an autocratic government and
they say oh we're not going to use it
except against criminals
and you just believe them no as i said
the contractual agreement comes after
two layers and you know i would love for
you to sit in one of our business ethics
committee
we have a tough discussion because
imagine a country is facing major
terrorist threats
in the same time they have some
corruption issues and you have to sit in
that room and weigh what is more
important to help them fight terror or
maybe there is a chance that it's going
to be misused it's not a black and white
answer it's a tough ethic ethical
question
there are other ethical questions in
deploying pegasus
to hone in on a target for instance
authorities often infect the phones of
innocent people around them like family
members
it's been reported that mexican
authorities used pegasus to capture drug
lord joaquin guzman better known as el
chapo by tapping the phones of a few
people he talked to while he was on the
land
i read it in the newspaper the same as
you okay in order to catch el chapo for
example they had to intercept
a journalist an actress and a lawyer
now by themselves
they you know
they're not criminals right right but if
they are in touch
with a drug lord
and in order to catch them you need to
intercept them
that's a decision that intelligence
agencies should get
what if you can prevent
the 911 terror attack
and for that you had to intercept
the son the 16 years old son of bin
laden would that be legit or not
targeting someone's inner circle has
become an issue in the khashoggi case
omar abdel aziz an influential saudi
online critic based in canada was
texting with khashoggi up to his death
now abdul aziz is suing an so alleging
that the saudis used pegasus to hack his
phone and thereby spy on khashoggi
lev julio if his investigation explored
the wider circumference around the slain
journalist
i can tell you that we've checked and we
have a lot of ways to check and i can
guarantee to you
our technology was not used on jamal
khashoggi or his relatives or the
dissidents or like
i'm not going to get into specific and
tell you that if we will figure out that
somebody is misused the system we will
shut down the system immediately we have
the right to do it and we have the
technology to do it it begs the question
did you shut down the saudis
i'm not going to talk about customers
and i'm not going to go into specific
we do what we need to do
we help
create a safer world