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Tuesday, July 20 2021 Dive In |
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That’s US Secretary of State Antony Blinken publicly blaming China for a massive cyberattack on Microsoft’s email software in March. Following its cue: the EU, Canada, Australia and the UK. Is this a big deal? Yes, it is the first time that the US has named and shamed Beijing. No, since words matter little when they are not accompanied by economic sanctions. But, hey, maybe that’s coming next. |
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Pegasus Project: The who’s who on the snoop list |
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The TLDR: Welcome to Day 2 of the global investigation into the use of Israeli spyware to hack phones of prominent politicians, journalists, activists and others. The names released in India are shocking—and yet predictable. If you have no clue what this is about, be sure to check out Monday’s Big Story.
The basic deetsParis-based media non-profit Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International accessed a global database of more than 50,000 phone numbers—which may have been targeted by a powerful spyware tool called Pegasus. The organisations shared these numbers with key media organisations around the world who helped identify the owners of these numbers. Amnesty’s Security Lab conducted forensic analysis on 67 smartphones, of which 23 were successfully infected and 14 showed signs of attempted hacking.
Here’s what we now know about the Indian snoop list:
The biggest names on the listRahul & friends: Two of Rahul Gandhi’s numbers appear on the list of numbers in the global database. His numbers were added to the list in 2018—in the run up to the 2019 elections. Gandhi has since given up both numbers—and he apparently changes devices every few months to avoid surveillance. So there is no definite forensic evidence that he was indeed hacked. What we have instead is circumstantial evidence: the presence of at least nine phone numbers of people in his personal network on the same global database. These include the numbers of two close aides—Alankar Sawai and Sachin Rao.
The Wire reached out to Gandhi’s friends and social acquaintances on the list:
Point to note: None of these people are involved in politics.
Gandhi’s response: Gandhi offered the same statement to all media outlets:
Prashant Kishor: The phone of the grand wizard of electoral politics (profiled here) was available for forensic analysis. It was most definitely hacked—on April 28, right in the thick of the Bengal elections. This may be “the first iron-clad piece of evidence” that Pegasus is being used to spy on electoral rivals—since Kishor is the political advisor to three BJP foes, Mamata Banerjee, Amarinder Singh and MK Stalin. There is also evidence that there was an earlier attempt to hack his phone in 2018.
More eerily, The Wire also notes:
At least one of these attacks used Apple’s iMessage. Also on the bigger database of potential targets: the number of Mamata’s nephew and closest advisor, Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee.
Kishor’s response: He said: “If the use of such methods during Bengal elections are taken as a test case, then it is quite clear that such things hardly have any impact on the electoral outcome.” Lol!
Speaking of elections: The list of verified numbers also included that of Ashok Lavasa, the only member of the 3-man Election Commission who ruled that then Candidate Modi and Amit Shah had violated the Model Code of Conduct during the 2019 election.
Modi’s ministers: Two cabinet-rank mantris are on the list of 300 verified numbers in the database—which means we don’t know for sure if they were hacked. These are (brace for full-on irony alert) the newly inducted Information Technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and the Minister of State for Water, Prahlad Singh Patel. Vaishnaw was added to the list in 2017—before he joined the BJP, while Patel was added in 2019. A great number of their family members and acquaintances are also on the list. As are close aides of two prominent women leaders Smriti Irani and Vasundhara Raje Scindia. The Wire has more analysis on why BJP leaders were on the list.
Vaishnaw’s response: He hasn’t said anything about his number being on the list, but just as his name was released, Vaishnaw was busy declaiming in the Lok Sabha: “Those reports had no factual basis and were categorically denied by all parties... Press reports… also seem to be an attempt to malign the Indian democracy and its well-established institutions.”
Ranjan Gogoi’s accuser: Back in 2019, a Supreme Court employee accused the then Chief Justice of India of sexual harassment. At least 11 phone numbers used by the woman, her husband and two other family members were also on the list of 300 verified numbers—and it is the largest such Indian cluster. She was added to the list just days after she recorded her allegations in a sworn affidavit—and may have been spied upon as she went through the internal inquiry, and while she consulted with lawyers. Why this matters:
Gagandeep Kang: This is possibly the most shocking inclusion on the list of verified numbers. India’s top virologist was added back in 2018 when she was working on the Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala. Her response: “I lead a very, very boring life.”
Foreign-related targets: Also on the list: M Hari Menon who is the India country head for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and was added in 2019. Menon has not commented on his inclusion on the list. Plus: a British High Commission official, two officials of the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other Delhi-based diplomats and ambassadors from Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, China, Nepal and Saudi Arabia.
A big government pushback |
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