Dalai Lama | Pegasus
Dalai Lama's advisers were potential targets on Pegasus surveillance list: Report
New Delhi/ IBNS: Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama's closest advisers have been found to be potential surveillance targets of Isareli spyware Pegasus, The Wire reported on Thursday.
Phone numbers of staff of other Buddhist clerics, several Tibetan officials and activists were also found on a leaked database.
According to reports published by The Wire, these numbers have been marked for being monitored from late 2017 to early 2019.
The inclusion of their phone numbers, however, may not mean that they have been infected by Pegasus, as that can only be confirmed through forensic analysis of the device, it added.
Some 50,000 phone numbers across the world have been identified as people of interest since 2016 by clients of the Israeli firm NSO.
More than 1,000 phone numbers in India appeared on the snooping list of the Pegasus, stated a collaborative investigation report by The Wire, The Washington Post and other media partners in 10 countries.
Names of high profile Indian political personalities like Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, former poll strategist Prashant Kishor, new IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister Prahlad Patel and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee among others have featured in the potential target list of the Israeli spyware, The Wire had earlier reported in an explosive revelation.
NSO had denied the snooping allegations, claiming that it only offers its spyware to "vetted governments" and said it was "considering a defamation lawsuit".
However, forensic tests had confirmed that some of them were successfully snooped upon by an unidentified agency using Pegasus spyware, The Wire reported.
The data was accessed by Paris-based nonprofit journalism organisation Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International and then shared with the Guardian, The Wire and other media outlets as part of the Pegasus project.
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