Israeli company, NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware is ‘a big black hole’ and almost impossible to break, says cyber expert Sandeep Shukla, as the company keeps updating its modalities on how to attack mobile phones with malware . The Quint.
Shukla is a professor of computer science and engineering at IIT Kanpur, which also runs a government-funded cyber security lab.
A global collaborative investigative project published by 17 media organizations on 18 July claims that the NSO group used its Pegasus spyware to target mobile phones of at least 300 Indians. The list includes BJP ministers, opposition leaders, top lawyers, businessmen, rights activists and journalists.
Pegasus first made headlines in 2019 when Facebook-owned WhatsApp confirmed that spyware had been used to target nearly 1,400 users, including journalists and human rights activists, in India. WhatsApp made this disclosure in a US law court in San Francisco.
WhatsApp has claimed to have fixed its software vulnerabilities that allowed Pegasus to enter mobile phones just by giving a WhatsApp video missed call.
But Pegasus seems to have found other ways to spy on people’s mobile phones.
The Quint Spoke to cyber expert Sandeep Shukla to know more about how Pegasus spyware operates and what measures can be taken to prevent mobile phones from being affected.
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