Israel's "Pegasus" AI Is Killing Thousands In The Middle East, Feb. 28, 2024

 

	Israel’s "Pegasus" Targeting System Is Lethal to Gazans Also    Earlier this month, following years of precise Israeli air-and-drone strikes that had killed dozens of senior Iran-backed militia commanders across Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, Tehran’s most powerful proxy force, sounded a belated public alarm about the artificial intelligence tools that the Israel Defense Force (IDF) uses to target its foes. “Essentially, Nasrallah’s counter-intelligence deputies told him, ‘Boss, you’ve got to tell everybody that the Israelis are cleaning our clocks,’” said a former CIA counter-terrorism officer who is deeply knowledgeable about Israel’s spyware, all boosted by a muscular application of artificial intelligence, or AI. This former official, who served in Israel and asked to remain  anonymous in exchange for discussing sensitive intelligence matters, was referring to Nasrallah’s lengthy Feb. 13 speech, which was  broadcast over Iran’s Press TV network. The Hezbollah chief warned his audience that Israeli intelligence had hacked into the data bases of Arab telecommunications firms across the region and vacuumed up millions of telephone numbers, as well as the names and IP addresses of their subscribers. Armed with that information, Nasrallah said the Israelis could take remote control of their targets’ cell phones and computers, giving them access to their emails, texts, photos and passwords. Without mentioning it by name, the former official said, Nasrallah was clearly referring to Pegasus, the now-commercial spyware developed by veterans of Unit 8200, the IDF’s enterprising signal’s intelligence branch. Nasrallah also warned that Israel’s cyber spies could covertly activate a cell phone’s microphone and camera, allowing them to record a target’s conversations and movements.  And with a sophisticated AI targeting platform that quickly sifts through vast amounts of that information as well as GPS coordinates, Wi-Fi signal strengths, and cell tower data, IDF officers could also quickly pinpoint a human target’s location, right down to a specific room in a building or the seat of a vehicle, enabling,  as the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once put it, “the separation of a terrorist’s head from his shoulders.”  In addition, Nasrallah warned that Israeli intelligence had also hacked into the myriad unsecured, Internet-linked CCTV and security cameras that operate across the Middle East, allowing both IDF military intelligence and the Mossad to keep their crosshairs fixed on the comings and goings of targeted militants.  “When the Israelis strike a target, many people search for their spies and agents,” Nasrallah said. “But for these operations, they don’t need spies. . .Your mobile phone is the spy. And it’s not just any spy. It’s a lethal spy.”  Nasrallah ended his admonition with an urgent plea to his fellow Shiite militants to turn off their cell phones and lock them away in metal boxes—presumably to prevent Israel from using Pegasus to switch them back on—and also, while they’re at it, to disconnect their CCTV and security cameras from the Internet—all “for the sake of security and the perseverance of this battle” against Israel. Nasrallah’s speech is significant in that it marks the first public acknowledgement of Israel’s technological prowess by a regional adversary, as well as an apparent effort by Hezbollah and its Iranian backers to learn as much as possible about the limitations of Israel’s spy technology on the battlefield so it can come up with ways to thwart it, the former CIA official explained.  “This is an extraordinary cybersecurity warning, based on deep, inside knowledge,” the former CIA official said of Nasrallah’s speech. “It’s absolutely mind-bending. I’ve never heard anything like that.” ...