Powerful spyware linked to a user in the United Arab Emirates – which could have allowed 24-hour surveillance of messages, photos and calls – was found on a device connected to Number 10’s network, it has been claimed.
The alarming cyber security breach is said to have occurred on 7 July 2020, almost a year into Boris Johnson’s time as Prime Minister.
This was linked to operators in the UAE, India, Cyprus, and Jordan.
The infection of a Number 10 device was revealed by an investigative journalist working for the New Yorker magazine.
They reported that several phones were tested at Downing Street, including the PM’s, but that UK officials were unable to locate the infected device and the nature of any data that may have been stolen was never determined.
‘When we found the No10 case, my jaw dropped,’ John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab centre at the Univestity of Toronto, told the magazine.
He claimed the UK had been ‘underestimating the threat from Pegasus’ and had been left ‘spectacluarly burned’.
Bill Marczak, another senior researcher, added: ‘We suspect this included the exfiltration of data.’
Powerful spyware known as Pegasus was used to infect a device connected to the network at 10 Downing Street, it has been claimed
Once Pegasus is on a person’s device, it can copy messages that are sent or received, harvest photos, record phone calls, or even secretly film the user through the phone’s camera, or record conversations by activating the microphone.
It could also potentially be used to pinpoint where someone is, where they’ve been, or who they’ve met.
Citizen Lab also found the suspected Foreign Office infection.
Ron Deibert, its director, wrote in an article on the lab’s website published today, that because the Foreign Office has many staff overseas, the suspected infections could have related to ‘devices located abroad and using foreign SIM cards’.
He added this was ‘similar to the hacking of foreign phone numbers used by US State Department employees in Uganda in 2021’.
Number 10 and the Foreign Office have been approached for comment.
The timing of the revelation about spyware on a No10 device – linked to an operator in the UAE – could prove embarrassing for the PM, as it comes little more than a month after Mr Johnson visited the region.
The PM used the trip to try and encourage both the UAE and Saudi Arabia to ramp up their production of oil as Western nations look to wean themselves off Russian supplies.
Share on Facebook «||» Share on Twitter «||» Share on Reddit «||» Share on LinkedIn