How Pegasus infiltrates into Indian politics?

 

India has been attacked by virus after virus in the recent past. The second most populous nation is getting revived from the second wave of coronavirus slowly and very few cases have been reported now. There is one more virus called Pegasus which is directly hitting Indian Parliament. 

When coronavirus is from China, Pegasus is derived from Israel. One is infected to the human body whereas the other virus infiltrated your phone. Pegasus is a spyware which was developed by a Israeli-based cyber intelligence and security company from NSO Group. The most sophisticated spyware from Israel is a famous phone hacking tool. Pegasus can be installed into the phone via common apps. Any malware can infiltrate into the phone by clicking a malicious link. As per the latest version of Pegasus, spyware can be installed even via a missed call. Once the Pegasus enters the phone, it provides complete control to the hackers on the device.

Indian news portal The Wire, has made allegations on authorities in the country likely spied on phones belonging to politicians, journalists and business entrepreneurs in India. The Wire mentioned at least 40 Indian journalists could have been targets of this phone hacking and 5 journalists were confirmed to have been infected with Pegasus. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, former election commissioner Askhok Lavasa, election strategist Prashant Kishor, Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee and Union Ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and Prahlad Patel appeared on a leaked list of “potential” or actual targets for spying by Pegasus spyware. Numbers of more than 180 Journalists from Global media organisations are in the leak.

Congress party has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “treason” and compromising national security following revelations that dozens of Indians were potential targets of snooping by an Israeli-made spyware. Not only opposition parties in India but global media too pointed towards Modi. The Guardian and The Washington Post were blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the spying. The Washington Post says that Pegasus spyware is sold to Indian governments to fight terrorism but in India it is being violated for political interests and it is used to target Indian journalists and opposition leaders. In 1988, Chief Minister of Karnataka resigned from his post after getting phone-tapping allegations against his government. Indian Parliament has been boiling since the last 2 days on spyware allegations. The BJP government has been fortunate for sidelining major issues like failures of second wave and continuous increase of petrol prices in the country because of Pegasus.