High-Profile Lawyers Targeted in Mexico Spyware Scandal
Mexico's surveillance scandal widened Wednesday to encompass a pair of prominent human rights attorneys probing a multiple homicide case whose victims include a photojournalist and an activist.
The internet watchdog Citizen Lab said Karla Micheel Salas and David Pena were targeted in 2015, weeks after they questioned prosecutors ' handling of the killings of activist Nadia Vera , journalist Ruben Espinosa and three other women in a Mexico City apartment in July that year. The victims were tortured and shot to death.
The lawyers' cellphones were targeted by messages designed to infect them with the same spyware that Citizen Lab previously determined was sent to 19 Mexican individuals or groups, the cyber-sleuths said in a research note. One said she believed she was infected by it.
Other Mexican targets of the sophisticated Pegasus spyware , made by Israel- based NSO Group , have included journalists investigating high - level corruption , opposition ...