Pegasus spies on Indian journalists

On December 27, 2023, Amnesty International confirmed that the Pegasus spyware, designed by Israeli company NSO Group, was used to monitor the iPhones of Indian journalists. The NGO reached this conclusion after a detailed examination of two of the journalists’ iPhones.

In September 2023, a report from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab revealed that NSO was exploiting a new iPhone vulnerability to install its zero-click spyware. In October 2023, Apple acknowledged a State actor had gained access, in India, to the iPhones of twenty or so political opponents, members of the opposition and journalists, without providing further details.

According to Amnesty International, the flaw identified by the Citizen Lab allowed the compromise, at the end of August 2023, of journalist Anand Mangnale’s smartphone. The latter was investigating billionaire Gautam Adani, who is very close to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Pegasus also targeted journalist Siddharth Varadarajan, in mid-October 2023, but Amnesty International could not determine whether the attack was successful.

Pegasus is a spyware sold exclusively to State actors. Theoretically its use is limited to counterterrorism and organized crime, but a significant number of States have used (and still use) the computer program for political purposes. In July 2021, the first revelations concerning Pegasus thus claimed that the Indian government had used the software to spy on its opponents.

Moreover, the Indian Supreme Court launched an investigation into the matter, which the executive branch refused to take part in. The findings were never made public.