How Pegasus, used to spy on Whatsapp, enters your mobile phone

Israeli spyware Pegasus has been used to snoop on WhatsApp by unnamed entities and has created a political storm in India. The Opposition has blamed the Narendra Modi government of adopting a "conspiratorial silence" on the issue.

Zee News got to the bottom of the fact to reveal the modus operandi of this espionage scandal and during its investigation along with its affiliate channel WION, has ascertained the whole matter to enlighten you about this WhatsApp snooping and the possible ways to protect you from falling prey to it.

The international spyware firm NSO created software called Pegasus to snoop through Whatsapp, and hacked mobile phones. In order to hack mobile phones, a video call was made to Whatsapp users mostly from the countries in northern Europe.

Once the call was received on the mobile phone, a malware used to enter the system of the phone and highjack the users' data. Surprisingly, this spyware also managed to enter the device even if the video call on the mobile phone was not received and the call was disconnected.

You will be shocked to know that as soon as the call was disconnected, the spyware entered the mobile phone using Jailbreak technology, which bypassed the security barriers present in the phone, and got control over the smartphone's camera, microphone, gallery, storage as well as location.

Whatsapp has admitted to having discovered the cyberattack and blocked that from video calling feature. It was visible to users as a video call, but it was not a normal call, it added. This special spyware that the NSO Group created to spy on people is called Pegasus, which is reportedly priced between Rs 180 crore and Rs 200 crore.

On Sunday, the Congress alleged that party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also received a message from WhatsApp regarding the spyware. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told media persons, "When WhatsApp sent messages to all those whose phones were hacked, one such message was also received by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra."

Last week, WhatsApp revealed that Indian journalists and human rights activists were among the roughly 1,400 users globally spied upon by unnamed entities using Pegasus.

The messaging platform stated that it sent special messages to all the affected users saying it had "reason to believe they were impacted by this attack to directly inform them about what happened".