India targeting high-profile journalists with spyware: Amnesty

NEW DELHI: India´s government has recently targeted high-profile journalists with Pegasus spyware, Amnesty International and The Washington Post said in a joint investigation published on Thursday.

Created by Israeli firm NSO Group and sold to governments around the world, Pegasus software can be used to access a phone´s messages and emails, peruse photos, eavesdrop on calls, track locations and even film the owner with the camera.

Amnesty said journalists Siddharth Varadarajan of The Wire and Anand Mangnale of The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project had been targeted with the spyware on their iPhones, with the latest identified case occurring in October.

“Our latest findings show that increasingly, journalists in India face the threat of unlawful surveillance simply for doing their jobs, alongside other tools of repression including imprisonment under draconian laws, smear campaigns, harassment, and intimidation,” said Donncha O Cearbhaill, Head of Amnesty International´s Security Lab.

India´s government did not immediately respond, but it denied similar accusations in 2021 that it used Pegasus spyware to surveil political opponents, activists and journalists.

Indian media reported last month that the country´s cyber security unit was investigating allegations by opposition politicians of attempted phone tapping after they reported receiving Apple iPhone warnings of “state-sponsored attackers”.

In that case, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the information and technology minister, said the government was “concerned” by the complaints.In October, Apple issued a new round of threat notifications globally to iPhone users who may have been targeted by “state-sponsored attackers”. More than 20 journalists, and opposition politicians in India were reported to have received the notifications.

Mangnale’s phone was targeted at a time when he was working on a story about an alleged stock manipulation by a large multinational conglomerate in India, Amnesty said.

The OCCRP published an investigation in August into the financial dealings of Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, a key ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mangnale told the AFP news agency that he was targeted “within hours” of sending questions to the Adani Group on behalf of the OCCRP.

Varadarajan – who was previously hacked with Pegasus spyware in 2018 – suggested to The Washington Post that he had been targeted for leading opposition to the detention of a prominent news publisher in New Delhi.

India’s government did not immediately respond to questions about the investigation.

In 2021, New Delhi was accused of using Pegasus to surveil journalists, opposition politicians and activists, with leaked documents showing the spyware had been used against more than 1,000 Indian phone numbers.