Shoot the Messenger: Espionage, Murder & Pegasus Spyware

Introducing Shoot The Messenger: Espionage, Murder & Pegasus Spyware

Shoot the Messenger is a new serialized, investigative-reporting podcast where we do deep dives on the international news stories that warrant a reexamination. We start our first season asking what really happened to the murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi? We now know the first weapon used against him was digital - a sophisticated spyware called Pegasus. Several people in Jamal Khashoggi's inner circle have had Pegasus confirmed on their phones. And it doesn’t stop there. There are thousands of identified targets. We all use our phones daily, as almost an extension of ourselves - but what happens when our phones are no longer safe? How did the spyware come to be, how does it work, and just how vulnerable are you? Find out on Shoot the Messenger, in a special partnership with the Committee to Protect Journalists, our first season features ten episodes on “Espionage, Murder, and Pegasus Spyware.” Shoot the Messenger is a production of Exile Content Studio and is hosted by Rose Reid and Nando Vila.

1. What Happened to Jamal Khashoggi?

In 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Turkey and was never seen again. Weeks later, the Turkish intelligence released secret tapes of Khashoggi’s last moments before being brutally murdered, causing an international uproar. It has been four years since Khashoggi’s murder, and what we now know is that the first weapon used against Khashoggi was digital and it’s called Pegasus - a kind of software that can be used to hijack your phone; a military-grade, spyware software. Guests: Widow of Jamal Khahsoggi, Hanan Elatr; Washington Post Dana Priest; New York Times’ Carlotta Gall Shoot the Messenger is hosted by Rose Reid and Nando Vila and is a production of Exile Content Studio.

2. Discovering Pegasus Spyware - The Magic Worm

More than four years after journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, Khashoggi’s phones are still with Turkish authorities. We learned how Khashoggi’s wife, Hanan Elatr discovered she had been targeted, tracked and spied on by Pegasus, the military-grade spyware on her phone. She was not the only one. His colleague, Omar Abdulaziz, and fellow activist, Ahmed Monsoor, were also targeted. Guests: Citizen Lab Founder Ron Deibert; Citizen Lab Sr Fellow, Bill Marczak; New York Times’ Nicole Perlroth Shoot the Messenger is hosted by Rose Reid and Nando Vila and is a production of Exile Content Studio.

3. Who is the NSO Group?

Shoot the Messenger: Espionage, Murder and Pegasus Spyware continues with its third episode of the series digging into the origin story behind the company that makes Pegasus spyware, the NSO Group. Israeli tech entrepreneurs Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie initially developed remote access to smartphones, which evolved into Pegasus.  In a twist of fate, over the course of a decade, they have managed to beat out or outlast major competition in the spyware industry, including the Italian company Hacking Team. Guests: Keshet cybersecurity reporter Amitai Ziv; ReaQta CEO & former Hacking Team employee Alberto Pellicione; Security Advisor Ian Iftach Amit Shoot the Messenger is hosted by Rose Reid and Nando Vila and is a production of Exile Content Studio.

4. The Day Pegasus Breached WhatsApp

Shoot the Messenger: Espionage, Murder and Pegasus Spyware continues with its fourth episode, exposing what really happened at WhatsApp when it was breached by Pegasus in 2019. The WhatsApp breach is a critical moment because it has put everything the NSO Group has built at risk - calling into question their valuation of $2B, making a public enemy of Silicon Valley, and initiating several major lawsuits leading all the way to the Supreme Court. In many ways, this exploit changed the trajectory of the NSO Group and its Pegasus spyware. The continuous fallout - and potential legal precedents - could affect everyone with a smartphone. Engineers Claudiu Dan Gheorghe and Otto Ebeling take us behind the scenes of what it was like to be working at WhatsApp that fateful day where Pegasus used an exploit on the WhatsApp software. Across the globe, we'll see how the hacking of WhatsApp affected real people - like those fighting for independence in Catalonia, Spain. Guests: Financial Times journalist Mehul Srivastava, Security Advisor Ian Amit, and former WhatsApp engineers who witnessed the Pegasus breach, Otto Ebeling and Claudiu Dan Gheorghe Shoot the Messenger is hosted by Rose Reid and Nando Vila and is a production of Exile Content Studio.