Indian journalist’s phone hacked by Israel-made spyware ‘Pegasus’: Report
The journalist works for Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project was also among those who received an alert their Apple mobile devices.
According to reports emerging, an Indian journalist’s phone has been allegedly attacked by Israeli spyware ‘Pegasus’ which is made by the Israel-based NSO Group. News Agency Reuters reported that an analysis of the journalists iPhone revealed that an infiltration attempt was made in August.
Anand Magnale, a journalist whose phone was allegedly attacked by Pegasus, works for a global group of investigative journalists called Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and was one of the people who had received an alert on his phone by Apple warning claiming that he was targeted by ‘state-sponsored hackers’ to remotely access his phone. Many politicians and influential people in India and across the globe had received such alerts. This has started a row between the ruling and the opposition parties, who have claimed that the Modi government is spying on them as he is scared of losing the upcoming general elections and has also raised calls for more stringent IT rules.
The Indian government has categorically denied any role in the hacks or any use of spyware, since the alerts did not speak of which country or government entity was actually behind the attempts. The Indian government has in the meantime ordered an inquiry into this matter. OCCRP co-founder Drew Sullivan told the news agency that the forensic work on Magnale’s phone found a pattern of suspicious crashes on it that matched previously known Pegasus intrusions to which neither the journalist nor the Union IT ministry have responded or reacted to.
Pegasus is a spyware which is sold exclusively to government bodies to combat terror and crime by allowing government bodies sweeping access to the targets’ smartphones, allowing them to record calls, intercept messages and transform the phones into portable listening devices. “Whatever government is spying on the reporters, there’s no plausible explanation for that other than political gain,” Sullivan told Reuters. iVerify, the company that ran the forensics on Magnale’s phone said with high confidence that there is a very good possibility that his phone was attacked with Pegasus.
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