Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was among the Indians snooped upon by the Israeli spyware ‘Pegasus,’ chief of the Congress’s media cell Randeep Singh Surjewala told the media on Sunday. The Congress released an official statement hitting out at the BJP, alleging that it was involved in the ‘hacking’ of mobile phones through the surveillance software belonging to the Israeli-based NSP Group.
In May this year, WhatsApp said that it had “stopped a highly sophisticated cyberattack” that exploited its video calling feature. It had sent messages to some of the users who were affected. Following the attack, Citizen Lab, a multidisciplinary research group at the University of Toronto, offered to help WhatsApp identify such cases and its researchers had reached out to the individuals affected as well.
"Two leaders, Praful Patel and Mamata Banerjee have stated their telephones were hacked. As far as I know, when WhatsApp supposedly sent messages to different people whose phones were hacked, Priyanka Gandhi also received a similar message," Randeep Singh Surjewala told the media.
Dubbing BJP the ‘Bharatiya Jasoos Party,’ Randeep Surjewala presented some documents, stating that via Pegasus, in April-May 2019, several journalists, activists and now, political leaders too, were snooped upon. He also claimed that the BJP-government was aware of this and there were documents that prove that the spyware Pegasus could be sold only to the government and not to any private entity.
“BJP Government, including the Ministry of Information was fully aware of the cell phone hack in April May 2019. Facebook has now gone on record to state that it sent a second written warning vis-a-vis the illegal Pegasus software in first week of September, 2019. Yet the Government decided to remain mum,” a Congress statement stated.
“Not only this, IT Minister, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad met WhatsApp CEO, Mr Chris Daniels on 20 August, 2019. He again met Facebook Vice-President, Mr. Nick Clegg on 12 September, 2019. Yet Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, IT Minister as also Modi Government chose to keep mum,” the statement added.
He also alleged that there are documents that also show that Pegasus spyware infected Bharti Airtel Ltd India, Bharti Airtel Ltd telemedia services India, MTNL India, National Internet Backbone India, Hathway, Star broadband, among others.
“Layers of BJP Govt’s conspiracy & collusion in the illegal & unconstitutional hacking of cell phones through surveillance software ‘Pegasus’ are unraveling everyday. BJP Govt is the deployer & executor of this illegal & unconstitutional snooping & spying racket,” Randeep Singh Surjewala tweeted along with a statement issued by the Congress party.
Randeep Singh Surjewala also stated that it hopes that the Parliament’s Standing Committee of Parliament takes cognizance of this whole matter and ask the NSO Group, WhatsApp, Facebook and the Government of India to give all facts and investigate.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that several activists and lawyers were among those who were targets of ‘state-of-the-art-
The NSO Group has denied any wrongdoing. A statement issued by the Tel Aviv-based company has stated that it provides 'authorized governments with technology that helps them combat terror and crime’. It has claimed that the spyware, Pegasus, has been sold only to ‘vetted and legitimate’ government agencies, and the same goes for India.
How Pegasus hacked into WhatsApp:
WhatsApp has alleged that Pegasus could send a link to a victim’s phone and can get installed on the phone even without the victim taking any action, like clicking on it or opening the message. In this case of May 2019, users received a missed video call on WhatsApp. The moment the phone rang, without users needing to answer that call, the malware was allegedly installed on the victim’s phone.
Once it gets into a particular phone, Pegasus can access passwords, contact lists, calendar events, text messages, and live voice calls from popular mobile messaging apps. It can even turn on the microphone and the camera and use the GPS function on the phone to track a target’s location and movements.
This spyware was also allegedly used to track down the location of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last year.