Priyanka Gandhi a victim of WhatsApp hack, claims Congress

17:58 November 03

Statement by Surjewala

Statement by Surjewala

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surajewala accused the ruling party of being 'fully aware' of snooping.

"The illegal spyware 'Pegasus' was used to hack cell phones in the run-up to the 2019 General Elections... BJP Government was fully aware of the same. Despite repeated reminders from Facebook, the Government did not act," Surjewala said.

The Congress, in a full frontal attack, alleged, the spyware 'Pegasus' was used to hack and spy upon politicians, journalists, lawyers, civil society groups and human rights defenders. "BJP Government is the deployer and executor of this illegal and unconstitutional snooping and spying racket. The new acronym for BJP is - 'Bhartiya Jasoos Party', he claimed.

This is the first time that any prominent politician has claimed of being targeted by the suspicious malware after the controversy broke out.

"The layers of BJP Government's conspiracy and collusion in the illegal and unconstitutional hacking of cell phones through surveillance software 'Pegasus' are unraveling everyday. 'Rule of Law' and fundamental 'Right to Privacy' have become a joke for the Modi Government", asserted Surjewala.

The Congress alleged, these rights are being "trampled upon and trashed" by the ruling Government.
 

16:43 November 03

Priyanka Gandhi a victim of WhatsApp hack, claims Congress

New Delhi:According to Congress, Priyanka Gandhi received a message from WhatsApp that her phone was suspected to have been hacked. The statement comes when Indian activists and politicians are pointing fingers at the government after WhatsApp revealed that it had informed government authorities in writing that 121 Indian individuals were compromised by the NSO's Pegasus ‘spyware’.

The matter came to light after WhatsApp sued the NSO Group in a federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday, accusing it of using WhatsApp servers in the United States and elsewhere “to send malware to approximately 1,400 mobile phones and devices (‘Target Devices’)… for the purpose of conducting surveillance of specific WhatsApp users (‘Target Users’)”.

The surveillance was carried out “between in and around April 2019 and May 2019” on users in 20 countries across four continents, WhatsApp said in its complaint.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, is the world’s most popular messaging app, with more than 1.5 billion users worldwide. About a quarter of those users — more than 400 million, or 40 crore — are in India, WhatsApp’s biggest market.

The NSO Group is a Tel Aviv-based cyber-security company that specialises in “surveillance technology” and claims to help governments and law enforcement agencies across the world fight crime and terrorism.

Even as the government has pulled up the US social media firm for not disclosing to Indian authorities the details of the spyware attack launched on Indian citizens, in a statement issued late Friday, WhatsApp appeared to counter the Indian government, saying it had in May “quickly resolved a security issue and notified Indian and international government authorities.”