The defence ministry on Monday told the Rajya Sabha that it has had no dealings with Israeli cybersecurity firm NSO Group, which is at the centre of a global controversy over the misuse of its Pegasus spyware to hack phones of journalists, activists and politicians. The ministry’s one-line response to the query pertaining to the NSO Group comes at a time when the Opposition parties have continuously disrupted the functioning of the Parliament over the Pegasus snooping controversy. The list database was first obtained by France-based non-profit Forbidden Stories, which shared the information with the reporting partners. The devices of at least 67 of the numbers were analysed by Amnesty International and of these, 37 had signs of being hacked by Pegasus. The Indian government has neither confirmed nor denied that it used Pegasus and has ruled out any illegal surveillance.

Source: Hindustan Times August 09, 2021 12:11 UTC