India mulling to purchase new spyware rivalling Pegasus: Report

The Indian government is looking to purchase a new spyware system that is “less exposed” than the controversial Israel-based NSO’s Pegasus, the Financial Times (FT) newspaper has reported quoting unnamed government officials.

According to the report, the Narendra Modi government has earmarked $120 million as it prepares for an auction to finalise the deal. More than two dozen companies are expected to partake in the bidding process.

The Indian government never officially acknowledged of having used the spyware made by the NSO group, following reports that it was used to snoop on Indian journalists, politicians and human rights activists.

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The FT report mentions that Indian officials have already set their sights on several Pegasus competitors.

Among the known Pegasus rivals are Predator, which is developed by Greece-headquartered Intellexa with the help of Israeli military veterans.

And the others in contention are Quadream—which is also being eyed by Saudi Arabia—and Cognyte—which was spun out of publicly traded Verint, and had its stock dumped by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund after an investigation by Meta found widespread abuse, the report said.

The talks within the ministry of defence over India’s new spyware contracts are in the advanced stages. However, it could still take weeks to issue a formal “Request for Proposals”, FT reported citing two people with knowledge of the talks.

In August last year, the Indian Supreme Court appointed a committee to probe whether the Indian government ordered “unauthorised” surveillance on targeted individuals. They found no conclusive evidence onthe use of Pegasus spyware in phones examined by it.

After the controversy had erupted, Ashwani Vaishnaw, the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, reiterated that all electronic interception follows due process of law.

(With inputs from agencies)

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