The Target List In India Is Not Ours, Never Was”

New Delhi: The NSO Group – the Israeli technology firm that developed and sells the Pegasus spyware programme – told NDTV on Tuesday that the list of Indian phone numbers reportedly targeted for surveillance by the govt with its software is “not ours, never was”.
A NSO spokesperson told NDTV the corporate is “not associated with the list published by Forbidden Stories (the Paris-based non-profit group that worked with Amnesty International to get the database of fifty ,000 phone numbers that triggered this controversy)”.

“It isn’t a NSO list, and it never was – it’s fabricated information. it’s not an inventory of targets or potential targets of NSO’s customers,” the spokesperson said, adding “repeated reliance on this list and association of individuals on this list as potential surveillance targets is fake and misleading.”

“The company doesn’t have access to the info of its customers,” the spokesperson also said, adding, however, that clients “are obligated to supply us with such information under investigation”.

“If and when NSO receives credible proof of misuse of its technologies, it’ll conduct a radical investigation, because it always had and always will,” the spokesperson said.

On Monday the corporate put out a press release denying all allegations after an explosive report from The Wire said over 300 Indian phone numbers – including those belonging to opposition leaders like Rahul Gandhi and senior journalists – were potential targets for hacking. It said it only offered its programme to “vetted governments for the only purpose of saving lives through preventing crime and terror acts”.

Over the past few days a world media consortium – which incorporates The Wire and therefore the Washington Post – have published reports that claim clients of the NSO Group used Pegasus to hack, or attempt to hack, phones of opposition leaders, journalists, human rights activists et al. .

In India, The Wire reported, several of those phone numbers were added to the list between 2017 and 2019, and within the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

The list, media reports claim, include Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and poll strategist Prashant Kishor (who masterminded the Trinamool’s victory over the BJP in Bengal). Forensic analysis indicated Mr Kishor’s phone was compromised as recently as July 14, The Wire reported.

Another name is Ashok Lavasa – the previous Election Commissioner who recorded a opinion when the election body ruled in favour of the Prime Minister during the 2019 election.

The Wire said there wasn’t enough evidence to suggest all phones on the list had been hacked, but forensic tests on some phones related to target numbers revealed signs of Pegasus activity.

The government hit back strongly; a source within the Ministry of Electronics and knowledge Technology told NDTV the govt had “nothing to fear and zip to hide”.

Speaking in Parliament on Monday, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw – whose number was also on the list, consistent with The Wire, slammed the discharge of “over-the-top” media reports, and said it “can’t be a coincidence” they were published each day before the beginning of Parliament’s monsoon session.

The row prompted fierce protests from the opposition on Monday – the primary day of the Parliament’s monsoon session – with Prime Minister Modi faced with slogans and shouting as he spoke.

Pegasus works by infiltrating phones via ‘zero-click’ attacks – which don’t require interaction from the phone’s owner – on or Apple’s iMessage or WhatsApp, which is, by some margin, the world’s most widely-used instant messaging service, with 400 million users in India alone.

In 2019, WhatsApp said 1,400 users in 20 countries, including Indian journalists and activists, had been targeted by Pegasus in May that year. The NSO Group denied the claims, saying: “Our technology isn’t designed or licensed to be used against human rights activists and journalists.”