Indian defence agency bought spyware from Pegasus ‘rival’, trade data reveals
The HinduAn Indian defence agency has been purchasing equipment from an Israeli spyware firm that is being billed as a potential Pegasus alternative, according to trade data reviewed by The Hindu. “Cognyte regularly targeted journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of opposition, and human rights activists around the world, without their knowledge, and collected intelligence on these people by manipulating them to reveal information and/or by compromising their devices and accounts,” the U.S. law firm Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP said on Monday, pointing to a ‘threat report’ by Facebook parent Meta Platforms on the “Surveillance for Hire” industry. Tracking trade data However, for over three years, Cognyte and its then-parent firm Verint Systems Inc., have been supplying computer gear to the Signal Intelligence Directorate, which comes under the Ministry of Defence’s Defence Intelligence Agency. ‘IB imports from NSO Group’ The Pegasus spyware was reportedly used on Indian activists, journalists, and politicians, among others, according to reporting from the Forbidden Stories consortium of journalists.