Months after Carine Kanimba's father was lured back to Rwanda under some false pretenses and imprisoned, she had discovered her own phone which had been hacked by using a private spyware.

HIGHLIGHTS
Congress is asked to oppose the commercial use of spyware in US
The forensic reports of her phone proved that the phone was hacked by Pegasus
Rwanda had denied on the use of Pegasus

Kanimba was the youngest daughter of Paul Rusesabagina, who was credited for saving over 1,200 lives during the year 1994 Rwandan genocide in a story which had inspired the movie 'Hotel Rwanda.' One of the opponent of Rwandan President Paul Kagame Rusesabagina who would be currently serving a 25-year prison sentence on charges that he had dismissed as politically motivated.

The researchers have alleged Pegasus was being used to spy on Kanimba and her cousin as Rusesabagina's family who was advocating for his release from Rwanda, that received about $160 million (roughly Rs. 1,274 crore) in economic aid from the US during the last budget year.

She had mentioned the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday that “unless there would be any consequences for countries and their enablers that abuse this technology, no one would be safe.'

Kanimba and technology specialists have urged Congress to oppose the utilization of commercial spyware within the US and discourage investment in spyware that has been used to hack the phones of dissidents, journalists, and even the US diplomats.

Pegasus infiltrates phones to manage their camera and microphone and siphon off data without even requiring the user to click on the malicious link. Well, it's a part of a burgeoning international market for states to accumulate cyber tools that were once out there only to the most technically advanced governments. Researchers at Google have identified minimum of 30 vendors who were selling “zero click” exploits or different spyware.

NSO group had mentioned that its software system cannot be activated against phone numbers with a US country code unless it was utilized by an American agency. However, there were many documented reports of American officials and citizens who are having their data captured by Pegasus.

Kanimba had been testified that she was alerted last year by a collective of journalists operating with Citizen Lab and Amnesty International that there was a reason to believe that she had been spied on. A forensic report had revealed that she had been targeted by Pegasus spyware. 

Rwanda had denied that they were using Pegasus. Its embassy in Washington had mentioned in a statement that its response “has not been modified regardless of who raises them.”

According to the embassy's statement 'these were politically intended allegations geared toward undermining Rwanda's judiciary system and sowing misinformation.'

Also Read: Pegasus spyware has been linked to the death of Jamal Khashoggi