Pegasus Spyware Row: NSO group denies reports on snooping
New Delhi: Israeli cyberarm firm, NSO group denied the 'Pegasus Project' report, saying the company has been falsely accused and considering a defamation lawsuit against publications.
The NSO Group in a statement released on Monday stated that the report by Forbidden Stories is full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories that raise serious doubts about the reliability and interests of the sources.
Paris-based media nonprofit Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International accessed the leaked database. The report was shared with The Guardian, The Washington Post, Le Monde, The Wire, as part of a collaborative investigation called the 'Pegasus Project'.
The media reports said that the leaked information was a list of over 50,000 smartphone numbers, which were believed to be of people of interest identified by clients of NSO since 2016.
Read: Supreme Court orders release of Manipuri activist detained under NSA
Forbidden Stories, an online website and Amnesty International had access to a leak of phone numbers of NSO clients selected for surveillance. The investigation was done by 17 media agencies and panned 45 countries.
Surveillance on Indian journalists:
According to media reports, the phone numbers of over 40 Indian journalists appear on a leaked list of potential targets for surveillance, and forensic tests have confirmed that some of them were successfully snooped upon by an unidentified agency using Pegasus spyware, reported The Wire .
