Key Modi rival Rahul Gandhi among potential Indian targets of NSO client: report

Rahul Gandhi, the leader of Indian opposition party Congress, was twice selected as a potential target of surveillance by spyware belonging to Israel-based cybersecurity company NSO.

According to a report from The Guardian, two numbers belonging to Gandhi, as well as phones belonging to at least five of his close friends and other Congress officials were identified as potential targets.

Gandhi was a candidate for possible surveillance ahead of the 2019 elections in India and in the months afterwards, according to a leaked list of potential targets selected by NSO customers.

NSO has allegedly created a spying tool known as Pegasus that allows its customers to hack mobile phones to monitor messages, camera feeds and microphones.

The data was accessed by the nonprofit journalism organisation Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International and shared with the Guardian and other media outlets as part of the Pegasus project.

It is not possible to say whether a phone in the leaked data was successfully hacked without forensic analysis. But the consortium confirmed Pegasus infections, or signs of potential targeting, on phones linked to 10 Indian numbers and on an additional 27 phones around the world.

Gandhi, who changes his device every few months to avoid surveillance, was not able to provide the phone he used at the time for examination. A successful hacking would have granted Modi’s government access to the private data of the prime minister’s primary challenger in the year before the 2019 elections.

“Targeted surveillance of the type you describe whether in regard to me, other leaders of the opposition or indeed any law-abiding citizen of India is illegal and deplorable,” Gandhi said.

“If your information is correct, the scale and nature of surveillance you describe goes beyond an attack on the privacy of individuals. It is an attack on the democratic foundations of our country. It must be thoroughly investigated and those responsible be identified and punished.”

Other numbers identified in the records included those of known priorities of the country’s security agencies, including Kashmiri separatist leaders, Pakistani diplomats, Chinese journalists, Sikh activists and businesspeople known to be the subject of police investigations. The client also identified two numbers registered to or once known to have been used by the Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan.