A group of Indians, including Journalists and Lawyers, asked the government on Friday to make public their relationship with an Israeli firm accused of deploying spyware. This group includes people whose phones were hacked through Facebook's WhatsApp messaging platform.
WhatsApp sued Israel's NSO group last week. WhatsApp has accused the NSO Group of helping its clients to spy on the phones of about 1,400 users. These users include diplomats from four continents, many leaders, journalists, military and government officials.
The NSO denied the allegations and said that it sells technology to governments to combat terrorism. Let us tell you that India is the largest market of WhatsApp with 400 million users.
According to the news agency Reuters, a group of 19 affected Indian users said in an open letter that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government should clarify whether they had monitored them. "It is a matter of public concern whether Indian tax payers' money has been spent on such cyber surveillance," a group of Indians, including journalists, lawyers, academics, writers and social workers, said in an open letter.
Two sources associated with the case said, '121 of the people allegedly affected by the Pegasus spyware of NSO are from India. According to WhatsApp, Pegasus took advantage of a flaw in the video calling feature on the platform. Using this, spyware paved the way to enter the device. Once after entry, it got free access to the phone's data including microphone and camera.
The group of Indian users said that spyware has compromised not only their security, but also the safety of their friends, family, customers and sources. He further said that we would like any response from the Government of India about whether they would be required for any operation within India between their various ministries, departments, agencies, or any state government, and the NSO group or any of its contractors, Pegasus or Did you know of any contracts to deploy related malware?
Currently, the Indian government has neither confirmed nor denied the use of spyware. The government has last week asked WhatsApp to give information about the nature of this breech and the steps taken to protect the privacy of users.