The Indian government is using Pegasus spyware on some of the country’s top journalists. This claim has been made in a recent report by Amnesty International and The Washington Post. The report was published on Thursday. As mentioned, Pegasus spyware is being used again against journalists in India and this list includes a journalist who has been accused of using Pegasus before.
The Pegasus spyware, developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, can capture all of a person’s phone information, emails, photos, call logs, location, and the person’s photo using the person’s mobile camera. India’s Intelligence Bureau imported the spyware from Israel’s NSO group in 2017, according to commercial figures, The Hindu reported.
According to the investigative agency, this spyware is widely used everywhere. Although the Pegasus manufacturer has made it clear that this spyware is not sold to any country’s government or security agencies.
According to Amnesty International, Pegasus spyware was recently detected on the iPhones of journalist Siddharth Vardarajan, founding editor of digital media outlet The Wire, and Anand Manganal, South Asia editor of The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. In the month of October this year, the presence of Pegasus spyware was detected on their phones.
According to a report in The Hindu, Pegasus spyware was found on Siddharth Vardarajan’s phone on October 16 this year. Two journalists whose phones had recently detected the presence of Pegasus received a warning from Apple in October.
Earlier in July 2021, it was alleged that the Pegasus spyware developed by Israel’s NSO organization had been used to spy on countries around the world. India was also in this list.
Allegations were made that Indian journalists, opposition political leaders, social activists were secretly installed with this spyware on their mobile phones. Their telephone conversations, social media messages, private conversations are all monitored through ‘Pegasus’. It is known that this spyware is such that it can be secretly inserted into the mobile as well as secretly removed.
