Whatsapp confirms Israeli spyware snooped on Indians

NEW DELHI: After Whatsapp confirmed that Indian human rights activists and journalists were among those targeted by an Israeli spyware, a political blame game erupted on Thursday between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, with some leaders demanding a parliamentary probe into the matter.

“Indian users were among those contacted by us this week,” a Whatsapp Spokesperson said, without revealing the numbers or names of those affected.

However, some individuals came out on their own on social media and news outlets, revealing they were among those affected by the spyware developed by Israeli cyber intelligence company NSO Group.

The piece of NSO Group software called Pegasus allegedly exploited Whatsapp’s video calling system with installing the spyware via giving missed calls to snoop on 1,400 select users globally.

“Government of India is concerned at the breach of the privacy of citizens of India on the messaging platform Whatsapp. We have asked Whatsapp to explain the kind of breach and what it is doing to safeguard the privacy of millions of Indian citizens,” tweeted IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

The BJP also dared Whatsapp to reveal the names of those affected.

The Whatsapp spygate immediately snowballed into a political controversy, with several Congress leaders blaming the BJP of being behind the Whatsapp snooping.

Facebook-owned Whatsapp has already sued NSO Group that exploited its video calling system to snoop on select users globally.

Those targeted in India included the human rights activists who were arrested over their alleged involvement in the Bhima-koregaon

Dalit riots near Pune in January last year and some journalists.

Of 1,400 affected users, over 20 are academics, lawyers, Dalit activists and journalists from India.

According to Whatsapp, the NSO Group used the flaw to hack into users’ smartphones.

“It targeted at least 100 humanrights defenders, journalists and other members of civil society across the world,” the head of Whatsapp, Will Cathart, wrote in an op-ed published by The Washington Post.

In a statement, NSO Group denied performing any such act, saying it disputed the allegations and vowed to “vigorously fight them.” In May, Whatsapp urged its 1.5 billion users to upgrade the app after discovering the vulnerability that allowed a spyware to be installed on users’ phones via the app’s phone call function. NSO limits sales of Pegasus to state intelligence agencies and others.