On Sunday, a Supreme Court-appointed technical committee published a public notice inviting residents to come forward and contact the committee if they believe their mobile phones have been infected with the Pegasus malware. These mails may be sent to the Technical Committee by January 7, 2022 at [email protected].
The notice, which was published in major newspapers on Sunday, also requested residents to explain why they believe their phones are infected with Pegasus and whether they would be able to allow the technical committee to examine their phones.
New Delhi will host a mobile collecting facility
According to the notice, anybody who feels that their phone is infected should contact the technical committee through email by the afternoon of January 7, 2022. If the Committee believes the grounds for your suspicion warrants further investigation, it will ask for your permission to test the mobile. The cell phone will be collected in New Delhi for testing and will be returned upon verification.
A technical committee consisting of Dr. Naveen Kumar Choudhary, Dr. Prabhakaran, and Dr. Ashwin Anil Gumaste was formed in October 2020 by a SC bench consisting of CJI NV Ramana, Justices Surya Kant and Hema Kohli to investigate the charges of espionage. Former IPS officer Alok Joshi and cyber security specialist Dr. Sandeep Oberoi will serve on the committee, which will be supervised by retired SC judge RV Raveendran. The group has been instructed to compile the report as soon as possible and present it to the Supreme Court.
What is Pegasus?
NSO, an Israeli cyber security firm, developed Pegasus. Pegasus spyware has been purchased by a number of countries, including Bangladesh. Questions concerning its usage have been raised everywhere from Mexico to Saudi Arabia’s government. NSO has been sued by a number of other corporations, including Facebook, which is owned by WhatsApp.
NSO, on the other hand, has previously disputed all of the charges. The firm claims that it exclusively distributes the programme to qualified government organisations and that its goal is to “combat terrorism and criminality.” Concerning the current charges, the NSO has made similar assertions.
Nations also declare that they buy it for security and counter-terrorism purposes, however Pegasus has been accused of “severe usage and abuse” by various governments.
How does Pegasus function?
Pegasus is a spyware programme created by NSO Group Technologies, an Israeli cyber security firm. This is an application that allows a hacker to obtain information about a smart phone’s microphone, camera, audio and text messages, email, and location if it is installed into the phone. Pegasus allows you to listen to encrypted audio and read encrypted communications, according to a research by cyber security firm Kaspersky. Encrypted messages are those that are only known by the sender and receiver. Even the firm whose platform is used to send the message is unable to see or hear it. The hacker may acquire all of the information about that person’s phone using Pegasus.
——————-
*Dr. Deepak Miglani, Email id.:- [email protected]