According to a new revelation, Pegasus malware was used to spy on Indians. In May 2019, WhatsApp sued Israeli spyware company NSO Group for its Pegasus malware, which was reportedly used to snoop on journalists, activists, attorneys, and top government officials in 20 countries across the world, including India. WhatsApp has stated that it has contacted many Indian users suspected of being the targets of unlawful spying using the Pegasus malware.
Although the apparent proof came after WhatsApp sued NSO Group, the employment of Pegasus has long been suspected in the WhatsApp cyberattack, which was originally disclosed in 2019.
What exactly is Pegasus, and how does it infect computers?
Pegasus is the flagship spyware of Israel-based NSO Group, according to The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which assisted WhatsApp in its investigation into the cyber-attack. It is also thought to go by other names, such as Q Suite and Trident. Pegasus is said to be capable of infiltrating both Android and iOS devices, and it employs a variety of methods to hack into a target's mobile devices, including zero-day flaws.
In the instance of WhatsApp, Pegasus is alleged to have exploited a weakness in the VoIP stack used by WhatsApp to conduct video and audio calls. Pegasus gained access to the target's smartphone with only a missed WhatsApp call.
The Citizen Lab states that Pegasus has previously utilized various methods to penetrate a victim's device, including as social engineering to convince the target to click on a link or utilising bogus package alerts to distribute the spyware. Pegasus has been around since 2016, and it was previously thought to have been used to target Indians.
What is Pegasus capable of?
Pegasus is a flexible piece of spyware that begins contacting control servers as soon as it is placed on a target's device, which may then transmit orders to harvest data from the infected device. Pegasus may collect passwords, contacts, text messages, calendar information, and even phone conversations made through messaging applications. It may also snoop using the phone's camera and microphone, as well as use GPS to monitor the user's current position.
In India, who was hacked using Pegasus?
It's unknown how many people were hacked in India using Pegasus over WhatsApp. However, a WhatsApp representative acknowledged to Gadgets 360 that the business contacted Indian consumers in relation to the May 2019 cyber-attack.
“We sent a customised WhatsApp message to roughly 1,400 users who we believe were impacted by the [May 2019] assault to personally notify them of what happened,” WhatsApp stated in a blog post.
WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has also declined to comment on who was responsible for the cyber-attack and unlawful spying. NSO Group has also denied any wrongdoing, claiming that the spyware is exclusively sold to “vetted and reputable government agencies.”
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