Phone numbers of Indian ministers, opposition leaders and journalists have been found on a database of targets for hacking that used ‘Pegasus’, an Israeli spyware, only available to governments, reported The Wire and other publications.
According to the report, more than 300 verified mobile phone numbers, including of two serving ministers, over 40 journalists, three opposition leaders and one sitting judge besides scores of business persons and activists in India could have been targeted for hacking and sold to government agencies.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology refuted the reports of surveillance of journalists. “The allegations regarding government surveillance on specific people has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever. In the past, similar claims were made regarding the use of Pegasus on WhatsApp by the Indian State. Those reports also had no factual basis and were categorically denied by all parties, including WhatsApp in the Indian Supreme Court.”
Asserting that “India is a robust democracy that is committed to ensuring the right to privacy to all its citizens as a fundamental right,” the government dismissed the media report as an attempt to playing “the role of an investigator, prosecutor as well as jury”.
The report came just a day before the start of the Monsoon Session of Parliament and could see the matter being raised in two houses. Some opposition leaders are also expected to give notices for adjournment or debate on this issue.
The report was published by The Wire news portal from India as also 16 other international publications including Washington Post, The Guardian and Le Monde, as media partners to an investigation conducted by Paris-based media non-profit organisation Forbidden Stories and rights group Amnesty International into a leaked list of more than 50,000 phone numbers from across the world that are believed to have been the target of surveillance through Pegasus software of Israeli surveillance company NSO Group.
The Wire’s analysis of the data shows that most of the names were targeted between 2018 and 2019, in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha general elections but there was not enough evidence to suggest all phones had been hacked.
The news agency reported that forensic tests conducted as part of the media investigation project on a small cross-section of phones associated with these numbers revealed clear signs of targeting by Pegasus spyware in 37 phones, of which 10 are Indian.
NSO Group, the Israeli company which sells Pegasus worldwide, says its clients, are confined to “vetted governments”, believed to number 36, according to The Wire.
A majority of the numbers identified in the list were geographically concentrated in 10 country clusters: India, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The leaked data includes the numbers of top journalists at big media houses like the Hindustan Times, India Today, Network18, The Hindu and Indian Express, The Wire said.
The mobile phone of a former Delhi University professor was also allegedly targeted, while the database also included at least nine numbers belonging to eight activists, lawyers and academics arrested between June 2018 and October 2020 for their supposed role in the Elgar Parishad case.
The Wire, however, added that the mere presence of a phone number in the leaked data does alone not reveal whether a device was infected. “Indeed, it is not possible to know whether their phones were targeted by Pegasus spyware… without digital forensic analysis,” it said.
“It seems you are trying to play the role of an investigator, prosecutor as well as jury. Considering the fact that answers to the queries posed have already been in the public domain for a long time, it also indicates poorly conducted research and lack of due diligence by the esteemed media organizations involved,” the government said in its response to the global media collective that worked on ‘Project Pegasus’.
