Coming up: Explosive revelation on Israeli firm's phone tap of high-profile people in India
By Asianet Newsable English | First Published Jul 18, 2021, 3:01 PM ISTAnd at the centre of an alleged major breach is an Israeli espionage firm, which has been in the crosshairs of the Indian security establishment.
If speculations are anything to go by, a major worldwide privacy breach is about to explode in the next few hours.
And at the centre of an alleged major breach is an Israeli espionage firm, which has been in the crosshairs of the Indian security establishment.
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BJP MP Subramanian Swamy took to Twitter on Sunday morning to alert users about the tapping of phones of several high-profile people in India.
Strong rumour that this evening IST, Washington Post & London Guardian are publishing a report exposing the hiring of an Israeli firm Pegasus, for tapping phones of Modi’s Cabinet Ministers, RSS leaders, SC judges, & journalists. If I get this confirmed I will publish the list.
— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39)The list of targets in India includes members of the Narendra Modi cabinet, Opposition leaders, functionaries of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Supreme Court justices and hundreds of journalists.
The whistleblower, who stumbled upon the damning evidence, claims that even end-to-end encrypted WhatsApp was hacked into by this Israeli firm.
Dr Swamy's Twitter post on phone tapping was backed by members of the Opposition, including Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien and Congress MP Karti Chidambaram.
The 2019 'Pegasus' phone breach
In 2019, WhatsApp had sued Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group, which developed spyware named Pegasus, which was used to hack into phones around the world.
Nearly 1500 users in four continents were targeted using Pegasus. In India, those targeted included journalists, senior government officials, diplomats and activists.
The modus operandi included the planting of malware in the target's device using email attachments. Downloading or accessing this email attachment would provide the hacker remote access to the device.
Pegasus enabled the hackers to extract data stored on the device.
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