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Ransomware & Malware The Record 1 week ago

Judge dismisses spyware case brought by Salvadoran journalists targeted with Pegasus

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CyberNew Threat Research Desk
• Original Reporting: The Record
CyberNew Threat Intel Assessment
Assessed Severity: INFORMATIONAL
Impacted Surface
Cloud & Distributed Infrastructure
Intelligence Sector
Ransomware & Malware

Analyst Takeaway

"Judge dismisses spyware case brought by Salvadoran journalists targeted with Pegasus A California federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of Salvadoran journalists whose devices were infected with powerful zero-click spyware. The plaintiffs, who all worked for the independent and Salvadoran news outlet El Faro, failed to convince the court that their case had jurisdiction..."

Recommended Defense & Mitigation

  • Threat Monitoring: Ingest published IOCs into SIEM/EDR detection rules for continuous telemetry monitoring.
  • Security Awareness: Alert staff and maintain baseline endpoint hardening across endpoints.
Curated & Verified by CyberNew Threat Intelligence Desk Standard Defense Framework (NIST / MITRE ATT&CK)
spyware
Image: Markus Spiske via Unsplash

Judge dismisses spyware case brought by Salvadoran journalists targeted with Pegasus

A California federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of Salvadoran journalists whose devices were infected with powerful zero-click spyware.

The plaintiffs, who all worked for the independent and Salvadoran news outlet El Faro, failed to convince the court that their case had jurisdiction in California, according to the judge’s order.

Between June 2020 and November 2021 Pegasus was deployed against lead plaintiff Carlos Dada and colleagues at least 226 times, according to the Knight First Amendment Institute, which filed the lawsuit on their behalf in November 2022.

The Dada case was the first to be filed against the Pegasus manufacturer, NSO Group, in a U.S. court.

Source Verification & Original Intelligence

This threat report was reviewed by CyberNew analysts and cross-referenced with primary security disclosures from The Record.

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