Govt officials, Opposition politicians, activists part of snooping list in India

In India the numbers of phones belonging to hundreds of journalists activists opposition politicians government officials and business executives were on the snooping list as were numbers in several other countries in the region including Azerbaijan Kazakhstan and Pakistan the Washington Post reportedWhen Siddharth Varadarajan cofounder of the Wire an independent online outlet in India learned that Security Labs analysis showed that his phone had been targeted and penetrated by Pegasus his mind immediately ran through his sensitive sources He thought about a minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modis government who had displayed an unusual concern about surveillance when they metThe minister first moved the meeting from one location to another at the last moment then switched off his phone and told Varadarajan to do the same Then the two phones were put in a room and music was put on in that room and I thought Boy this guy is really paranoid But maybe he was being sensible Varadarajan said in a recent interview the report saidMilitarygrade spyware licensed by an Israeli firm to governments for tracking terrorists and criminals was used in attempted and successful hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists human rights activists business executives and two women close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi according to an investigation by The Washington Post and 16 media partnersWahington Post said the numbers on the list are unattributed but reporters were able to identify more than 1000 people spanning more than 50 countries through research and interviews on four continents several Arab royal family members at least 65 business executives 85 human rights activists 189 journalists and more than 600 politicians and government officials mdash including cabinet ministers diplomats and military and security officers The numbers of several heads of state and Prime Ministers also appeared on the listThe phones appeared on a list of more than 50000 numbers that are concentrated in countries known to engage in surveillance of their citizens and also known to have been clients of the Israeli firm NSO Group a worldwide leader in the growing and largely unregulated private spyware industry the investigation foundThe greatest number was in Mexico where more than 15000 numbers including those belonging to politicians union representatives journalists and other government critics were on the listA large share of numbers were in the Middle East including in Qatar the UAE Bahrain and Yemen The UAE Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are reported to be among NSO clients the report saidMore than 1000 French numbers were on the list In Hungary numbers associated with at least two media magnates were among hundreds on the list and the phones of two working journalists were targeted and infected forensic analysis showedPegasus is engineered to evade defences on iPhones and Android devices and to leave few traces of its attack Familiar privacy measures like strong passwords and encryption offer little help against Pegasus which can attack phones without any warning to users It can read anything on a device that a user can while also stealing photos recordings location records communications passwords call logs and social media posts Spyware also can activate cameras and microphones for realtime surveillanceThe attack can begin in different ways It can come from a malicious link in an SMS text message or an iMessage In some cases a user must click on the link to start the infection In recent years spyware companies have developed what they call zeroclick attacks which deliver spyware simply by sending a message to a users phone that produces no notification Users do not even need to touch their phones for infections to beginMexico was NSOs first overseas client in 2011 less than a year after the firm was founded in Israels Silicon Valley in northern Tel Aviv In 2016 and 2017 more than 15000 Mexicans appeared on the list examined by the media consortium among them at least 25 reporters working for the countrys major media outlets according to the records and interviewsOne of them was Carmen Aristegui one of the most prominent investigative journalists in the country and a regular contributor to CNN Aristegui who is routinely threatened for exposing the corruption of Mexican politicians and cartels was previously revealed as a Pegasus Story continues below advertisement target in several media reports At the time she said in a recent interview her producer was also targeted The new records and forensics show that Pegasus links were detected on the phone of her personal assistantTodays thriving international spyware industry dates back decades but got a boost after the unprecedented 2013 disclosure of highly classified National Security Agency documents by contractor Edward Snowden They revealed that the NSA could obtain the electronic communications of almost anyone because it had secret access to the transnational cables carrying Internet traffic worldwide and data from Internet companies such as Google and giant telecommunications companies such as ATampTThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever