On July 18, 2021, several news organizations across the world outburst a report that many governments are using the Pegasus spyware tool, developed by Israel cyberarms company NSO group, to conduct surveillance on politicians, activists, journalists, and other media personalities. Though the firm claimed that its spyware is only used to prevent terrorism and crime but the reports about the spyware released in media are not in favor of this statement.
In the report, there is speculation that the Indian government was involved in conducting espionage on several prominent leaders, politicians, journalists, human rights activists with this spyware. It is claimed in the report that most of the prominent figures were targeted ahead of the Lok Sabha elections between 2018 and 2019.
Among the prominent individuals, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, Ashok Lasava, former Indian Election Commissioner, Prashanth Kishor a poll strategist, Siddharth Varadarajan an investigative journalist, Umar Khalid a student activist, and numerous politicians, businessmen, etc. were among those who are under the radar of Israeli spyware.
More than 300 phone numbers in India were traced by the Pegasus, as per the leaked list shared by human rights group Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories, a Paris based nonprofit journalism organization.
What is Pegasus?
Pegasus is a spyware hacking software suite basically used for the surveillance of individuals that can be secretly installed on mobile phones and other devices that run iOS and Android operating systems. Once the software is installed, it can run arbitrary code, collect any data from the device and transmit it back to the attacker.
Read more about the Pegasus spyware discovery, evolution, how it infects the phone and what it can do in detail – Pegasus – A Sophisticated Spyware Tool.
Indian Government response on Pegasus Report:
The Government of India denied these allegations stating, “That reports are baseless with no concrete basis or proof. It was an attempt to malign Indian democracy and to originate doubt on the well-established nation’s national security. The reports seem to be insufficient and unclear, particularly in light of the repeated assurance made by the NSO group that it sells their products to vetted government clients and law enforcement agencies.”
They also added that “In 2019, the same kind of allegations were made regarding zero-click attacks on WhatsApp done by the Pegasus spyware, and the Indian government was involved, but the reports had no genuine facts and basis and were categorically denied by all the Indian political parties, including the Supreme Court.”
Here is the official press release statement by the India IT Minister – Statement on “Alleged use of spyware Pegasus to compromise phone data of some persons as reported in Media on 18th July 2021”.
Opposition Indian Political Parties inputs on Pegasus Report:
There is a tremendous outrage among opposition parties as they clearly targeted and accused the Central Government of compromising national security following the reports that claimed to conduct illegal surveillance on mobile phones of the prominent individuals by the Israeli product. They demanded a high-level investigation on the top officials of the government about the spying on the political leaders and citizens during and afterward of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Many questions were raised by the opposition regarding the purchase of the Pegasus spyware and demanded answers for authorization to buy the software from the Israel company and how much money was spent on it.
NSO Group statement on the report of Pegasus spyware used by the Indian government:
The Israel cyberarms firm states that all media reports about the surveillance and hacking phones of Indian ministers, opposition leaders, journalists, activists by their Pegasus spyware are not true and reports are from unidentified sources and their information has no solid evidence and facts to defend without supporting documents.
Pegasus usage in other Countries:
According to the Pegasus project report, not only in India but more than 50,0000 phone numbers from other 11 countries which include Azerbaijan, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Spain, Rwanda are attacked by the Pegasus spyware. According to this report, other country’s government agencies are also involved in illegal surveillance of their citizens.
Image source: here.
Pegasus Project – A Global Investigation:
Due to this illegal surveillance of individuals by the government across the world, a global investigation was carried out in collaboration with 17 international news media organizations. This project includes 80 worldwide journalists from the media agencies – The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Wire, Radio France, and Le Monde, Haaretz/The Maker, etc. collectively investigating the Pegasus spying abuses.
Other organizations such as Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International support this global investigation and provide their findings and reports to them. Also, Amnesty released various tools and data from these investigations including a GitHub repository listing compromised devices and Mobile Verification Tool (MVT).
Following this investigation, many IT organizations started observing their connections with NSO Group and its products. Recently, Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud service of Amazon, shut down the infrastructure and accounts linked to the Israeli surveillance company.
The Apple organization also published that they are ready to pay a $1 Million bounty if anyone discovers the type of vulnerability used by the Pegasus spyware in their devices.
To know in depth forensic analysis of Pegasus spyware, read the forensic methodology report released by Amnesty International – Forensic Methodology Report: How to catch NSO Group’s Pegasus.
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