The WhatsApp has confirmed that nearly two dozen journalists, academicians, Dalit and human rights activists in India have been targeted by a spyware called Pegasus. Ashish Gupta, the chief of Asomiya Pratidin Bureau at New Delhi has also been affected by the spyware.
Pegasus has been developed by anIsrael-based technology firm known as NSO. Pegasus allows the hacker access tothe phone's camera, microphone, files, photos, and even encrypted messages andemails.
According to reports, Pegasus spyware is impossible to detect. It is a sophisticated spyware and a phone can be infected with Pegasus just by calling it via WhatsApp; users do not even need to pick up the call.
The phone does not show any signswhen it has been infected by Pegasus; making it difficult to detect thespyware.
However, it has come to lightthat WhatsApp has information about the affected users and sending alertmessages to the list of affected users asking them to update to the latestversion of the app. Citizen Lab based in Canada is also sending alert messagesto affected users.
There is no way to get rid of Pegasusapart from discarding the phone. Even a factory reset doesn't kill it.
According to experts, affected peopleshould just discard the phone and when they buy a new phone they should installall the updated versions of apps. They should also change all the passwords ofcloud-based websites. This is the only way to get rid of the spyware.
