DNA Special: Pegasus project - exaggerated claims based on baseless report? What you should know

It is alleged that with the help of an Israeli spy software Pegasus, many important people of India were spied on. These include the names of 40 journalists apart from the leaders of the opposition and Union ministers.

We are talking about the espionage scandal which is being discussed in the whole country today. It is named Pegasus Project. It is alleged that many important people of India were spied on with the help of Pegasus, made by NSO Group, an Israeli company. With the help of this software, the mobile phones of these people were first hacked and then the activities of these people were monitored. The names of 40 journalists, some opposition leaders, two central government ministers, people holding legal positions, and several industrialists are among those who were allegedly spied on.

Some of these names are- Rahul Gandhi, India's Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of State Prahlad Singh Patel, Union Minister Smriti Irani's Officer on Special Duty Sanjay Kachru and Election Strategist Prashant Kishor. The list also includes the name of the personal secretary of former Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje.

The thing for you to understand here is that the list has 50,000 phone numbers from 45 countries. And no one knows who spied on whom. But the leaders of the Opposition and journalists in India automatically guessed that this espionage was done by the government of Narendra Modi. While NSO Group, the maker of Pegasus has denied this, they say this list is fake and has been available on the Internet for a long time.

Now let us tell you what is Pegasus and how does it work?

This is a surveillance software, made by Israel's security company NSO Group. Through this, a person's phone can be hacked and his activities can be monitored. For this, first, the information of the person whose phone is to be hacked is collected. For this, a link is first sent to his number and when that person clicks on this link, then this software is secretly installed on his phone. Now a new version has also arrived, in which this software is installed on any phone even from WhatApps Call.

Now let us tell you why we believe that this 'Project Pegasus' report is baseless.

1. This report mentions a list of 50,000 phone numbers, about which NSO Group claims that this is already available on the Internet. These numbers are registered in 45 countries of the world. Investigative entities have identified 1500 of these numbers and forensic examination of 67 mobile phones was done.

Of the numbers identified, 300 are registered in India. Evidence of tampering was found in 37 of these mobile phones through Pegasus. Now imagine that out of 50,000 phone numbers, only 37 mobile phones investigation has been made the basis of such a big disclosure. These included 10 mobile phones of India, out of which evidence of the use of Pegasus has been found in 9.

2. The media organizations of India and the world who have published this report prominently have said in their report that the presence of these numbers in the list does not prove that all the numbers have been spied on.

3. Many media organizations publishing this news have written in their headlines how phones of journalists, ministers, activists may have been used to spy on them. Those who published the news themselves do not believe in the matter of espionage and they are saying that some people may have been spied on through mobile phones.

4. This report has also been prominently published by the US newspaper The Washington Post. The owner of the Washington Post is Jeff Bezos who claims that he himself has become a victim of Pegasus. In 2020, The Washington Post claimed in the year 2020 that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had hacked his mobile phone with the help of Pegasus. It is said that through this espionage scandal, some private photos of Jeff Bezos were made public and all these things later became the reason for the divorce between Jeff Bezos and his wife. And he had to pay about Rs 3 lakh crore to his wife.