What started with WhatsApp revealing that around 1,400 of its users in 20 countries, including Indian journalists and activists, had been targeted by Pegasus—the spyware developed and sold to governments by Israel-based NSO Group—in May 2019 has now assumed much wider proportions with news that Pegasus may have been used to hack the phones of as many as 300 Indian citizens. The list of potential targets includes Union ministers, politicians from both ruling and opposition parties, judges, activists, journalists and NGOs—from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to election strategist Prashant Kishor, former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa and a woman who accused a former Chief Justice of India of sexual harassment. The modus operandi involves infiltrating phones to monitor text messages, camera feeds and microphones, without leaving any evidence in the device. The allegedly targeted phone numbers are part of a leaked database accessed by Forbidden Stories, a French media non-profit, and shared with an...
