According to sources, Pegasus, a malware built by Israeli business NSO group, targeted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, political strategist Prashant Kishor, and two Union ministers.
At least two of Rahul Gandhi’s cellphone numbers appear on a list of prospective targets compiled by an official Indian customer of Israeli surveillance technology company NSO Group.
According to reports, five of Rahul Gandhi’s friends and acquaintances’ phone numbers were also added to the list of prospective targets. According to reports, none of the five are involved in politics or public affairs.
In response to the claims, Indian Youth Congress president Srinivas BV stated that Rahul Gandhi might be a Pegasus target before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Prashant Kishor and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek Banerjee are among those whose phone numbers appear on the list of possible targets. Prashant Kishor and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, were important in the Trinamool Congress party’s win in the state’s recent assembly elections.
Using NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, their close aides’ phones were also allegedly hacked. According to the findings, Amnesty International’s digital forensic investigation pointed to this technical security violation.
However, because their phones were not immediately available for forensic analysis, it was not yet known if their mobile phone accounts were truly hacked, according to the same article.
Aside from them, at least two Union ministers’ phone numbers are on the list of prospective targets. Ashwini Vaishnav and Prahlad Patel are their names. Ashwini Vaishnav, the minister of communications, electronics and information technology, and railroads was recently admitted into the Council of Ministers. Prahlad Patel was recently appointed as a minister of state with the Jal Shakti responsibility.
Personal secretaries to prominent BJP politician Vasundhara Raje and Sanjay Kachroo, who served as an OSD for Smriti Irani during her first stint as a Union minister in the Narendra Modi administration from 2014 to 2015, were allegedly on the list of prospective targets.
Former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa’s phone number, which he used in 2019, was also on the list of possible targets. According to sources, Pravin Togadia, the leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), is also listed in the database.
According to reports, these numbers were on a client of the NSO Group’s list of prospective monitoring targets for 2017-2019.
These are among the 300 confirmed Indian phone numbers that Pegasus is said to have targeted.
