What is Pegasus, how does this spyware from Israel work?

Ground Report | New Delhi: What is Pegasus; Pegasus spyware is once again in discussion in India. In India, it is being claimed to spy on the phones of many journalists and celebrities. Pegasus is developed by Israel's cybersecurity company NSO. Many countries including Bangladesh have bought Pegasus spyware. 

There have been controversies about this in the past as well. From Mexico to the government of Saudi Arabia, questions have been raised about its use. Several other companies, including Facebook-owned company Facebook, have sued this. It is not officially known about India whether the government has bought 'Pegasus' from NSO or not.

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However, NSO has earlier denied all the allegations against itself. The company has been claiming that it only sells the program to accredited government agencies and aims to "fight terrorism and crime". NSO has also made similar claims regarding the recent allegations.

How does it work?

The spyware was developed by Israeli cybersecurity company NSO Group Technologies. This is a program that is inserted into a smartphone phone, a hacker can get information about the microphone, camera, audio and text messages, email, and location of that smartphone.

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According to a report by cybersecurity company Kaspersky, Pegasus lets you listen to encrypted audio and read encrypted messages.

Encrypted are messages that are only known to the sender and receiver of the message. Even the company on whose platform the message is being sent cannot see or hear it. Using Pegasus, the hacker can get all the information related to that person's phone.

In India, on July 18, there were reports on social media that an important report related to the use of spyware software Pegasus is about to be published. These reports gained strength when Subramanian Swamy tweeted about it and wrote that ‘Pegasus’ services have been taken to tap the phones of cabinet ministers of Modi government, RSS leaders, Supreme Court judges.’ 

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