Researchers say Thai pro-democracy activists hit by spyware

Cybersecurity researchers have outlined cases where Thai activists involved in the country’s pro-democracy protests had their devices attacked with spyware

Cybersecurity researchers reported details Monday of cases where Thai activists involved in the country’s pro-democracy protests had their cell phones or other devices infected and attacked with government-sponsored spyware.

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Investigators of the internet watchdog groups Citizen Lab, Thailand’s Internet Law Reform Dialogue, or iLaw, and Digital Reach said at least 30 individuals — including activists, scholars and people working with civil society groups — were targeted by an unnamed government entity or entities for surveillance with Pegasus, a spyware produced by the Israeli-based cybersecurity company NSO Group.

The reports from the two groups named many of those targeted, confirming earlier reports of the surveillance, which John Scott-Railton of Citizen Lab said shows that governments are exploiting their ability to buy technologies designed to fight crime and terrorism to spy on critics and other private citizens.

“Citizen Lab believes there is a fundamental challenge for civil society,” John Scott-Railton of Citizen Lab said in an online presentation at a briefing in Bangkok.

The attacks on the individuals’ devices spanned from Oct. 2020 to Nov. 2021, a timing “highly relevant to specific Thai political events” since they took place over the period of time when pro-democracy protests erupted across the country.

But Scott-Railton said Citizen Lab, which exposes digital espionage campaigns and insecure software, believed there was still an active Pegasus operator in Thailand.