A Spy in the Ointment

The fallout from the revelations about the Pegasus spyware allegedly being used to snoop on Indian political leaders continues to create waves around the world. What are the implications for India?

- Sujit Bhar

EVERY day, a little more is known about the deadly spyware Pegasus. More than 50,000 phone numbers that have been snooped upon have been released in batches by a consortium of media publications/houses, including The Washing ton Post, The Guardian and Forbidden Stories.

The Pegasus Project, as it is being called, is an investigation by 17 media organisations in 10 countries, coordinated by Forbidden Stories with the technical support of Amnesty Inter national’s Security Lab. There is help, also, from University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. In India, The Wire is publishing more details every day.

The question that remains to be asked is: “So, has any harm really come to any of the “victims”, and what can we do about it now?” However, before coming to the critical issue of a solution, one needs to understand the problem.

The short version of the object in focus is as follows: Pegasus is a military-grade spyware, developed by a 10-yearold Israeli cybersecurity (now being called “cyber arms”) firm, the NSO Group. The spyware can be covertly installed on mobile phones (and other devices). The software is being continuously upgraded to include most versions of iOS and Android.