Telegram founder Pavel Durov published a text on his channel on messaging application that accuses the duopoly of Apple and Google to facilitate the hacking of smartphones. According to the executive, the companies would intentionally leave loopholes in Android and iOS that contribute to the increase in spyware on smartphones.

The Telegram founder's statement is based on accusations made by Edward Snowden in 2013 that both the Apple Both Apple and Google are part of a global surveillance program by the US National Security Agency (NSA) that requires these companies, among other things, to “implement backdoors in their mobile operating systems. These backdoors, often disguised as security bugs, allow US agencies to access information on any smartphone in the world.”

According to Durov, private intelligence companies such as NSO Group are aware of these breaches and take advantage of them to implement proven spyware, such as Pegasus – an application used by the Israeli government to spy on political opponents, religious leaders, journalists and even other governments around the world.

The founder of Telegram also adds that he is aware that one of his numbers has been monitored by the Israeli company since 2018. He ends the message by asking governments to toughen up the international community's demands regarding the monopoly of these companies.

“The existence of backdoors in critical infrastructure and software poses a huge challenge to humanity. That is why I have been calling on governments around the world to start taking action against the duopoly.” Apple-Google in the smartphone market and force them to open up their closed ecosystems and allow more competition. So far, even though the current monopolization of the market increases costs and violates the privacy and freedom of expression of billions, government authorities have been too slow to act. I hope that the news that they themselves have been targeted by these surveillance tools will change politicians’ minds.”

Understand the case

Last week, a group of journalists from several international media outlets revealed that the Israeli government uses a spyware called Pegasus to investigate political opponents. According to investigations by media groups, the application is developed by the company NSO Group which provides intelligence services for tracking users.

The Pegasus hack happens in two stages, taking advantage of application update loopholes messengers like WhatsApp and Telegram, and then rely on NSO's social engineering department, which offers teams for real-time monitoring of users. According to the company, Pegasus is capable of copying all information from the infected device, as well as activating geolocation, voice and video recording features at any time.

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