SURVEILLANCE: The latest and most sophisticated spyware is made by an Israeli company which sells it to governments to spy on their own nationals.

The Wire Staff

The West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee admits that she was offered the Pegasus spy kit by the Union home ministry. Pegasus is an extremely dangerous App which can even deep fake the speeches and images of politicians!

Banerjee on Thursday told the media at the state secretariat that the NSO Group had approached the West Bengal police “four or five years ago” to sell the spyware.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday, March 17, claimed that her state government had been offered the NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware at a price of Rs 25 crore, but had turned it down.
Her remarks came a day after she had told the West Bengal assembly that the spyware had been offered to her government, when she had also alleged that the spyware had been purchased by erstwhile Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu – an allegation denied by his Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
“We have never purchased any spyware. We never indulged in any illegal phone tapping,” TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh said on Thursday. “Yes, Pegasus offered to sell its spyware to the AP government as well but we rejected it (sic),” Lokesh said.
Banerjee on Thursday told the media at the state secretariat that the company (the NSO Group) had approached the West Bengal police “four or five years ago” to sell the spyware but that when word got to her of the offer, she had rejected it.
“If it was used for the benefit of the country or for security reasons then it was a different matter altogether, but it has been used for political purposes, against judges, officers which is not at all welcomed,” she told reporters.
Israeli company NSO Group’s Pegasus is state-of-the-art spyware that allows users unfettered access to the target device (generally a smartphone) through a ‘zero-click’ attack; not requiring any action from the target’s end in order to gain access to the device. Once installed, the Pegasus user can access the device’s camera, messages and all other data stored on it.
As part of the Pegasus Project, The Wire and 16 other news organisations from around the world had forensically found that the Israeli spyware had been deployed against several people. Among the potential list of targets were journalists, politicians, judges, human rights activists and more.
The investigation had found that Banerjee’s poll strategist at the time, Prashant Kishor, had been targeted and a forensic investigation of his phone revealed that it had, indeed, been infected with the spyware.
Thereafter, the numbers of Mamata’s nephew and Trinamool Congress MP, Abhishek Banerjee as well as that of Banerjee’s personal secretary, had been found on the list of potential targets.
NSO claims that it sells the spyware only to governments and is used to target criminals and terrorist organisations.
After Banerjee had urged the Supreme Court to take suo motu cognisance of the use of Pegasus in the country, the West Bengal government had set up an inquiry commission to look into the matter, which was to be headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Madan B. Lokur and former acting Chief Justice of the Calcutta high court, Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya.
Thereafter, the Supreme Court, claiming that there had been “no specific denial” on the use of Pegasus from the Union government, set up an independent expert committee to investigate the potential use of the spyware. The committee is yet to submit its report.
(With PTI inputs)

Courtesy: The Wire