Privilege Motion over Pegasus

January 31, 2022

On January 30, 2022, Congress gave a notice in Lok Sabha to move a privilege motion against Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw, alleging that he misled the House on Pegasus spyware issue. A similar notice will be issued in Rajya Sabha as well.

Highlights

Privilege motion was moved citing a report that, India bought Israeli spyware in 2017 as part of USD 2-billion package for weapons.
Opposition has alleged government of using Israeli spyware Pegasus to snoop on political leaders, judges, journalists, and civil society activists.

Government’s view

The Government is of the view that, it has never bought Pegasus spyware from the NSO Group.

What was the issue?

A global consortium of media groups had reported in July 2021 that Pegasus spyware had been used by several governments worldwide, to snoop on businessmen, journalists and opponents etc. In India, The Wire had report that, government used Spyware to target Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, then Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, political strategist Prashant Kishor and other prominent names. The list also mentioned around 40 journalists.

What is Pegasus?

Pegasus is a type of malicious malware or software, classified as a spyware. It is designed for gaining access to devices. It gathers personal information of uses, without their knowledge and relay it back to people who are using the spyware to spy.

Who has developed it?

Pegasus has been developed by Israeli firm NSO Group. NSO Group was set in 2010. Earliest version of Pegasus had infected phones through spear-phishing, emails or text messages. It was captured by researchers in 2016.

Case Study

In 2019, WhatsApp filed a case in the United States court against Israel’s NSO Group and alleged that the firm was incorporating cyber-attacks on application by infecting mobile devices.

Steps taken by Indian government against cyberattacks

Cyber Surakshit Bharat Initiative: This initiative was launched in 2018, with the aim of spreading awareness on cybercrime and building capacity for safety measures.
National Cyber security Coordination Centre (NCCC): NCCC was developed in 2017, to scan internet traffic and communication metadata in India, to detect real-time cyber threats.
Cyber Swachhta Kendra: It was launched in 2017, for internet users for cleaning their devices by wiping out malware and viruses.
Computer Emergency Response Team – India (CERT-IN): CERT-IN is the nodal agency, dealing with cybersecurity threats like phishing and hacking.

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