ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Monday expressed concern after reports emerged of India using Israel-made spyware in attempted and successful hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, government officials and rights activists.
The use of the software, called Pegasus and developed by Israel’s NSO group, was reported on by the Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde and other news outlets who collaborated on an investigation into a data leak.
The leak was of a list of up to 50,000 phone numbers believed to have been identified as people of interest by clients of NSO since 2016, the reports said.
As many as 300 mobile contacts used in India — including those of government ministers, opposition politicians, journalists, scientists and rights activists — appeared in the list of “potential targets for surveillance”, The Wire reported.
The contacts included those of more than 40 journalists from major publications such as the Hindustan Times, The Hindu and the Indian Express, as well as two founding editors of The Wire, it said.
“Extremely concerned [about] news reports emerging from @guardiannews that Indian [government ] used Israeli software to spy on journalists, political opponents and politicians,” Fawad said in a tweet.
Extremely concerned on news reports emerging from @guardiannews that Indian Govt used Israeli software to spy on Journalists,political opponents and politicians,unethical policies of #ModiGovt have dangerously polarised India and the region… more details are emerging
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) July 19, 2021
“Unethical policies of #ModiGovt have dangerously polarised India and the region […] more details are emerging.”
The leaked records were initially accessed by Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based non-profit organisation, and Amnesty International and were then shared with news outlets.
“I wasn’t aware that my phone is being watched. I had my phone forensically analyzed by The Wire team,” said Vijaita Singh, a journalist associated with The Hindu and one of the reported victims.
“They have found traces of hacks being attempted on my phone.”
AFP, Reuters contributed to his report
