Pegasus is almost certainly the most powerful piece of spyware ever developed. Installed by as little as a missed WhatsApp call, once on your phone it can record your calls, copy your messages, steal your photos and secretly film you. Those that control it can find out your daily movements: exactly where you’ve been, and who you’ve met. From a wayward princess who married into the royal family of Dubai; to the president of one of the most powerful and long-standing Republics in Europe; and a reporter investigating arms deals being negotiated by the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Trump administration: these three individuals and many more have been targeted by Pegasus – with sometimes deadly consequences. The personal data of the victims is captured by their own governments, foreign governments and even by private criminal enterprises. They have become, in an instant, vulnerable to blackmail, intimidation, false imprisonment and assassination. Some have already suffered these fates. Pegasus by Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud investigates how people’s lives and privacy are being threatened as cyber-surveillance occurs with exponentially increasing frequency across the world, at a sweep and scale that astounds – and horrifies.

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