Pegasus Spyware- A Threat To Cyber Protection Laws In India
- IJLLR Journal
- Mar 24
- 2 min read
Ananya Singh, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru, India
PEGASUS SPYWARE
Pegasus is a type of malicious software or malware classified as spyware designed to infiltrate IOS and android devices to secretly collect information from the users. Pegasus is a ‘zero click’ mobile surveillance that has extensive data-collection capabilities. It can read texts and emails, monitor app usage, track location data, and access a device’s microphone and camera. It is designed to gain access to devices, without the knowledge of users, and gather personal information and relay it back to whomever it is that is using the software to spy.1
Pegasus was developed by the Israeli firm NSO Group that was set up in 2010 to combat terror and crime around the world but it had an inverse effect and became the most powerful cyber weapon which mainly targeted influential people in the spheres of journalism, politics, civil services etc.2
Initially, Pegasus spyware would access information from the user by sending them a malicious link by clicking on which the user’s device would become a surveillance device for the users. This was known as spear-phishing and was discovered by scientists in 2016. Ever since it was discovered, the NSO team worked on making it a ‘zero-click’ surveillance which would not require any sort of inquiry or interaction with the users in order to infiltrate their devices and eventually became successful.
The NSO Group is an Israeli cyber-arms company that created Pegasus and supplies it to the governments of different countries around the world and many of these governments use it as surveillance devices on their citizens and violates their privacy which is a basic human right and is also guaranteed under article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.3
