It lands on your cellphone with its giant wings flapping, penetrates the phone’s operating system, reads messages and emails, cracks passwords, tracks your location, and even accesses the mic and the camera. It is Pegasus, a dangerous spyware named after the winged horse in Greek mythology, and designed by the Israeli cyber-intelligence firm NSO Group to hack into cellphones through WhatsApp, the multimedia messaging platform owned by Facebook.
Pegasus can infect devices running on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems. Its snooping prowess is notorious—1,400 individuals in 45 nations have been targeted so far. India woke up to the Pegasus threat only recently, when it was revealed that 121 of the victims were Indians, most of them lawyers, activists and journalists.
NSO Group says it sells Pegasus to government clients only. So, when Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra revealed that she, too, was targeted, it resulted in an avalanche of allegations that the Union government was behind the snooping. “When WhatsApp sent messages to all those whose phones were hacked, one such message was also received by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra,” said Randeep Surjewala, chief spokesperson for the Congress, on November 2.
Four days earlier, WhatsApp had filed a lawsuit against NSO in a US court, saying Pegasus piggybacked on its app to infect cellphones. With 400 million users, India is WhatsApp’s biggest market. To contain the fallout from the security breach, the messaging giant has gone all out to assure users that their privacy and security remained its highest priority. It has reached out to the victims, asking them to update the app to protect themselves.
This story is from the November 17, 2019 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 17, 2019 edition of THE WEEK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
BIOPIC AND BEYOND
Randeep Hooda may have proved his acting credentials with biopics, but typecast him at your own peril
Flutter of flimsy wings
Butterfly Research Centre in Bhimtal boasts 3,500 butterfly and moth specimens
SIMILAR STATES, DIFFERENT BATTLES
The Congress seems to have the edge in Telangana while in Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu and Jagan Mohan Reddy are locked in a bitter battle
A RIDE TO REMEMBER
On board Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s bus as he was attacked
Winning 14 of 17 seats is my target
Anumula Revanth Reddy is on a mission to demonstrate a democratic and egalitarian facet of power and leadership.
LOTUS TAKES ROOT
Buoyed by its slowly growing acceptance among the voters in Tamil Nadu, the BJP is mounting its fiercest offensive ever
BLANK CHECK
Several factors favour an increase in the BJP’s vote share in Kerala, but whether the party can win a seat remains uncertain
CONGRESS HAS A HISTORY OF MAKING ADJUSTMENTS WITH COMMUNAL FORCES
In April 2021, as Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was leading the CPI(M)’s assembly poll campaign to win a second consecutive term, a spirited debate erupted in Kerala over an epithet that party workers had bestowed on him.
POLL PLOT
Congress hopes its five guarantees’ will blunt BJP’s aggressive push
MODI'S GUARANTEES REMAIN IN SPEECHES, MY GUARANTEES ARE FULFILLED
The transformation is unmissable. The old-school mass leader Siddaramaiah has suddenly switched into the new avatar of a master strategist.