Shoot the Messenger: Espionage, Murder & Pegasus Spyware – Details, episodes & analysis

Hey Shoot the Messenger Listeners - we are hard at work on Season 2, “Who Killed the Haitian President?” It will launch in late February. Until then, we’re bringing you special bonus episodes. 

This episode we’re sharing the first episode of a new series from our friends at Brazen and PRX called ‘The Professor.’ 

“The Professor” is an investigative podcast about a stolen masterpiece, the Italian mafia, and one man's search for redemption.

In this bonus episode of Shoot the Messenger, we share a special interview host Rose Reid did with Russian journalist and founder of the media outlet Meduza, Galina Timchenko.

Citizen Lab and Access Now confirmed Galina Timchenko had been infected with Pegasus — which is the first documented case of the use of Pegasus against a Russian journalist.

Before Galina Timchenko was the editor in chief of Meduza, she ran one of Russia’s most popular media outlets, called Lenta.ru. She was fired as Lenta.ru’s chief editor in 2014, after Vladimir Putin returned to power, the same year of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Since 2014, Galina and her team have been reporting on Russia in exile. 

We’ll launch our second season in early 2024 - which investigates “Who Killed the President of Haiti?”  In the meantime, we will bring you monthly bonus episodes - featuring our favorite shows and updates on Pegasus.

Shoot the Messenger: Espionage, Murder and Pegasus Spyware continues with its eighth episode, a special interview with acclaimed journalist Carlos Dada about the intense targeting of him and his newsroom, El Faro, in El Salvador. 

El Faro is no stranger to threats and intimidation - which has increased under the administration of President Nayib Bukele.

Pegasus was used to spy on Carlos Dada for more than a 100 days in a row. Between June 2020 to November 2021, more than 20 members of El Faro were infected with NSO Group's Pegasus spyware.

John Scott-Railton of Citizen Lab worked to identify the El Faro breach — this was one of the most obsessive cases of spying Citizen Lab has ever seen.

Shoot the Messenger is hosted by Rose Reid and Nando Vila and is a production of Exile Content Studio.

Guests: Carlos Dada and John Scott-Railton

Shoot the Messenger: Espionage, Murder and Pegasus Spyware continues with its seventh episode, revealing a pattern of Pegasus as a bargaining chip for foreign relations.

Over the past decade, under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - there is a direct correlation between his travels, his meet and greets with world leaders…and the proliferation of Pegasus spyware.

Where Netanyahu goes, Pegasus seems to follow. As Netanyahu asserts his control over a divisive Israel, should we expect to see an increase in the scope of NSO Group's capabilities in digital surveillance? This industry has boomed during Netanyahu's tenure - and he has famously said, "Don't over-regulate."

Shoot the Messenger is hosted by Rose Reid and Nando Vila and is a production of Exile Content Studio.

Guests: Keshet’s Amitai Ziv; Financial Times’ Mehul Srivastava; Citizen Lab’s Scott Stedman

Shoot the Messenger: Espionage, Murder and Pegasus Spyware continues with its sixth episode, breaking down the private equity funds behind the makers of Pegasus.

The NSO Group has grown from a few founders working in a renovated chicken coop to being valued at over $2 billion dollars. Where did that money come from? We dive into the complex financial web behind the NSO Group, with a structure supported by pension funds, potential clients, and power players, and how they went from being valued in the billions to being strapped for cash.

Shoot the Messenger is hosted by Rose Reid and Nando Vila and is a production of Exile Content Studio.

Guests:  Financial Times’ Kaye Wiggins; Keshet journalist Amitai Ziv; Oregon activist Sravya Tadepalli

Shoot the Messenger: Espionage, Murder and Pegasus Spyware continues with its fifth episode. As WhatsApp and Facebook bring NSO to court in the federal court, the future of the NSO Group is in jeopardy and their tactics are further exposed.

After Pegasus breached WhatsApp - it started a chain reaction of negative events for the NSO Group, calling into question their valuation of $2B, making a public enemy of Silicon Valley, causing them to be blacklisted in the US, and initiating several major lawsuits leading all the way to the Supreme Court.

Five months after the Pegasus breach, WhatsApp and their parent company Facebook (now Meta) filed a lawsuit against NSO Group in California. Apple followed suit, setting up a showdown between Silicon Valley and the NSO Group. And that’s not all - groups such as Access Now, Amnesty International, and the Committee to Protect Journalists banded together to file an amicus brief in support of the WhatsApp lawsuit. The potential legal ramifications of these cases could affect everyone with a smartphone - even you.

Guests: Access Now's counsel Natalia Krapiva; Attorney Kyle McLorg

Shoot the Messenger is hosted by Rose Reid and Nando Vila and is a production of Exile Content Studio.

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.

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.

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.

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.