Predator claims

EDITORIAL: We hope the denials from the Pakistani government about the alleged use of Israeli-made Predator spyware in the country are true. When a state insists there is “not an iota of truth” in allegations that an Israeli-made spyware system attempted to target a Pakistani citizen, the expectation is that the matter ends there. But cybersecurity does not operate on reassurance alone.

The Amnesty International investigation that triggered the debate is technical, detailed, and supported by digital forensics. That alone makes this an extremely dangerous business, and one that requires more than categorical dismissal.

Predator is not an ordinary piece of malware. It is a commercial spyware system developed by Intellexa, an Israeli-linked surveillance consortium whose products have been used by governments and intelligence services. Amnesty’s “Intellexa Leaks” investigation relied on leaked internal documents, training materials and forensic analysis of a suspicious WhatsApp link sent to a human rights lawyer in Pakistan. Google separately notified several hundred users across multiple countries, including Pakistan, that their accounts had been targeted. While none of this establishes operational use inside Pakistan, it does establish capability and intent. And in this domain, intent is enough to demand vigilance.

The danger is not abstract. Israeli intelligence agencies have a long and well-documented history of penetrating hostile organisations, often through sophisticated digital compromise. It is not necessary to accept every regional narrative about covert operations to acknowledge how devastating this capability can be. Pakistan cannot afford complacency, especially when allegations involve a spyware system designed to bypass encryption, activate microphones, extract messages, and route data through anonymised networks to obscure the operator.

There is also a geopolitical dimension that cannot be ignored. Pakistan does not recognise Israel, does not maintain diplomatic relations, and routinely positions itself as a state that rejects Israeli intelligence influence. That makes the very idea of an attempted infection politically sensitive, even if ultimately unproven. A denial may suffice as a political response, but it does not substitute for a technical one. States are best protected by systems, not statements.

This brings the argument to where it should have begun: Pakistan’s own institutional readiness. Regardless of whether Predator was used, attempted, or merely flagged as a potential threat vector, the country still lacks a modern legislative and oversight framework governing digital surveillance. The Amnesty report was able to dominate the narrative because there is no publicly accountable mechanism in Pakistan that can independently verify, investigate or rebut such claims. In a vacuum of oversight, even incorrect allegations acquire weight.

The broader problem is structural. Cybersecurity and intelligence operations in Pakistan function under opaque mandates, with no parliamentary body empowered to examine digital monitoring practices, no statutory protections for citizens against illicit interception, and no independent audit capacity to test the integrity of state systems. When allegations emerge, the default response is denial because there is no institutional architecture capable of demonstrating compliance or disproving misconduct. That is not a sustainable position in a world where spyware has become an international commodity.

None of this pre-judges the Amnesty claim. The government may well be correct. But national security is not strengthened by assuming that a threat does not exist simply because it is inconvenient. The safer approach is to assume the opposite: that the threat environment is evolving faster than our regulatory and defensive capacity, and that adversarial actors, state or private, will exploit every weakness available.

If anything useful comes out of this episode, it should be a shift in how Pakistan treats digital vulnerability. Establishing an updated legal framework for surveillance, creating an independent oversight body, and ensuring technical transparency would protect both citizens and the state. Denials may close a news cycle, but only institutional reform can close the gaps that spyware seeks to exploit.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025