PEGASUS ATTACK: PEEPING THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW
NSO Group Technology is an Israeli technology firm known for its Pegasus spyware enabling remote surveillance of smartphones. WhatsApp being of the world's most popular messaging platforms with 1.5 billion users sued NSO which misused to spy on 1400 people globally out of which 121 were Indians.
IT minister Ravi Shankar has no clear answer on "who paid for Pegasus in India?". However he said no unlawful surveillance were done. The concern arises as Pegasus was misused earlier by countries like UAE, Saudia Arabia, Maxico etc to spy on its citizens.
NSO charges a fancy amount of $650000 for hacking 10 devices apart from a an installation charge of $500000 as on 2016. Pegasus is however not used for mass surveillance but for targeted attacks.
There arises a question, "Why WhatsApp ?" The answer is simple- its popularity. More popular the app more likely it get targeted- tweeted the director of Cyber security. Meanwhile WhatsApp fixed the usage of some open latching in the code by Pegasus.
It is not WhatsApp to be blamed but it is high time to find who decided to spy on its citizens.
As long as data remains a valuable resource there will be attempts by governments and private parties to peep into it, they will find ways to breach security. Be aware of it, keep devices updated, and when dealing with high sensitive issues use apps that has secondary layer of authentication and encryption.
Too less word count ( min 400 words needed) and incomplete analysis. Do include the measures that Govt is taking to protect its citizens from such spying and update the above entry.
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