RECKLESS-1
RECKLESS-1 is the name used by Citizen Lab for a Pegasus spyware operator linked to the Mexican government. The operator is described as using NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware and associated exploit infrastructure to target members of Mexican civil society, including journalists and their associates. Citizen Lab attributed infection attempts against Río Doce journalists Andrés Villarreal and Ismael Bojórquez in May 2017 to RECKLESS-1 shortly after the murder of journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas. Citizen Lab also linked Pegasus infection attempts against journalist Griselda Triana, Valdez’s widow, to the same operator. Reported lures were tailored to current events and victims’ circumstances, including messages about the Valdez murder investigation, breaking news, romantic content, and banking alerts. Infrastructure associated with RECKLESS-1 included domains such as banca-movil[.]net, animal-politico[.]com, and savephotos[.]net, and some phishing URLs were shortened with bit.ly before redirecting to Pegasus exploit infrastructure. Citizen Lab reported that clicking the links would likely have silently infected devices with Pegasus, which it described as capable of reading messages, examining photos, tracking location, and activating microphones and cameras. Citizen Lab reported that RECKLESS-1 was active until June 2017, and that Mexican government-linked NSO Group operators remained active as recently as late September 2018. The content does not provide additional aliases or sub-groups beyond RECKLESS-1.
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Targeting
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Who they target
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
- Government & Administration
- Non-Governmental Organizations
- Academia & Research
- Independent Media
Where they target
Geographies tied to known operations.
- 🇲🇽 Mexico
Where they're from
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
- MX
Tradecraft
6 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
Associated malware families
1 malware family attributed to this actor across reporting.
Observables
10 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
Recent activity
2 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Pegasus spyware operator linked to the Mexican government that targeted journalists, civil society members, and associates of slain journalist Javier Valdez using malicious SMS messages containing Pegasus exploit links.
A Mexico-linked Pegasus operator accused of abusive spyware targeting against journalists, lawyers, activists, investigators, public health practitioners, and politicians in Mexico, including infection attempts against Río Doce staff after the killing of Javier Valdez Cárdenas.
The version that knows your environment.
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.