VERY IMPORTANT

Award winning journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas was the founder of Río Doce, a Mexican newspaper known for investigating cartels. He was gunned down near his office in May 2017. Two days after the killing, Río Doce’s director and a colleague began receiving infection attempts with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. Several of the infection attempts purported to provide information about the Cárdenas killing. The Mexican government-linked NSO Group customer had already been publicly exposed for abusing Pegasus months before, suggesting that NSO Group failed to take effective action to prevent the continuing abuse. A total of 24 individuals are now known to have been abusively targeted with Pegasus in Mexico.