Macron among 14 heads of states on potential spyware list

Amnesty International says French President Emmanuel Macron leads a list of 14 current or former heads of state potentially targeted for hacking by clients of the notorious Israeli spyware firm NSO Group

BOSTON -- French President Emmanuel Macron leads a list of 14 current or former heads of state who may have been targeted for hacking by clients of the notorious Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, Amnesty International said Tuesday. “The unprecedented revelation ... should send a chill down the spine of world leaders," Amnesty's secretary general, Agnes Callamard, said in a statement. Among potential targets found on a list of 50,000 phone numbers leaked to Amnesty and the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories include Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and Barham Salih of Iraq. King Mohammed VI of Morocco and three current prime ministers — Imran Khan of Pakistan, Mustafa Madbouly of Egypt and Saad Eddine El Othmani of Morocco — are also on the list, The Washington Post reported. The Post said none of the heads of state would offer their smartphones for forensic testing that might have detected whether they were infected by NSO's military-grade Pegasus spyware. Thirty-seven phones identified in the investigation were either breached or shows signs of attempted infection, it has reported.