Indian journalists targeted by Israeli spying program: What do we know?

A new forensic investigation by Amnesty International and the Washington Post has found that the Indian government used Israel's Pegasus spy program to spy on prominent Indian journalists. A report containing the findings was published on Thursday. Here's what we know:

What does the report say?

According to a report published by Amnesty's Security Research Institute, the software continues to be used to target high-profile Indian journalists, including those who were previously victims of the same spyware attack.

Siddharth Varadarajan, founder and editor of The Wire, and Anand Mangnaile, South Asia editor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), were among those recently targeted using Pegasus spyware on iPhones. The most recent attack was discovered in October of this year.

On October 31, iPhone maker Apple sent a notification to users around the world who may be at risk of "state-sponsored" attacks. More than two dozen of the users who received warnings are opposition leaders and journalists in India.

Opposition MP Mahua Moitra was one of them. Moitra, known for his pointed questioning in parliament, was recently expelled from parliament on charges of misconduct after repeatedly raising questions about alleged preferential treatment given by the government to the Adani Group, a business known to have close ties to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Amnesty was able to identify the email address used by the attackers to target Mangnale, who at the time of the attack was writing an article about stock manipulation at a large multinational conglomerate in India. It is unclear whether the target broke and damaged Mangnail's cell phone.

According to a Washington Post article about the investigation, Mangale's phone was hacked within 24 hours of contacting tycoon Gautam Adani. The same email address was used to attack Varadarajan on October 16. There is also no indication that this attack was successful. The attack came as a broad opposition coalition united against Prime Minister Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of India's general election.

When was Pegasus previously used to attack Indian journalists?

Amnesty previously revealed that Varadarajan's phone was targeted and infected by Pegasus in 2018. His device was reviewed by a commission set up by the Supreme Court of India in 2021. The investigation was completed in 2022 and its results have not been made public.

"However, the court found that the Indian authorities were 'uncooperative' with the technical committee's investigation," Amnesty's report said. New Delhi is accused of using Pegasus to spy on journalists, opposition politicians and activists, according to documents released in 2021 that showed the spyware was used on more than 1,000 Indian phone numbers. The list was distributed to the media by Amnesty and Forbidden Stories, a non-profit journalism organization based in Paris.

What is Pegasus and how does it work?

Pegasus is a spyware program developed by Niv, Shalev and Omri (NSO) Group Technologies, an Israeli cyber weapons and intelligence company. It was launched in August 2016. NSO claims that this spyware is used by governments and official law enforcement agencies only to support rescue operations and deter criminal or terrorist activities. If your phone is attacked by Pegasus, it can become a surveillance device that allows Pegasus to access your text messages, phone calls, photos and videos. It also access the phone's camera, location, microphone and record audio or video without the phone owner's knowledge. Early versions of spyware targeted users through phishing attacks. This means that the malicious link was sent to the target via email or text message. When the target clicked on the link, the spyware was installed on their phone.

However, technology has advanced since then and now you can install Pegasus without clicking any malicious links. Instead, they can use so-called "null click" attacks to infect devices. This is done by exploiting vulnerabilities in the phone's operating system that even the developer is not aware of. Encrypted apps like WhatsApp have not only been hacked, but are now being used to infect devices with spyware. In 2019, WhatsApp confirmed that its platform was used to send malware to more than 1,400 phones, including several Indian journalists and human rights activists. Users receive WhatsApp calls and the software is installed on their phones even if they don't answer the call. The iMessage software is also used on the iPhone. With the rapid advancement of technology, it is becoming increasingly difficult to detect the presence of Pegasus by telltale signs. While ordinary phones are less at risk, the phones of activists and high-profile journalists are at risk of being monitored by spyware. Is India suppressing free speech?

Many media and human rights groups have warned that press freedom has declined under the Modi government and several journalists have been arrested. India dropped from 150 to 161 in the world press freedom index last year. The Modi government has denied the figures and questioned the methodology, saying there is freedom of speech in India. In early October, Indian police raided dozens of journalists and arrested Prabir Purkayasta, the editor of NewsClick, an independent and critical website. Many other NewsClick reporters had their devices and homes searched.