Category: Tech

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) will trace the suspects responsible for hacking the phone of senior Supreme Court judge Qazi Faez Isa.

The News reported that the FIA team would comprise forensic and cyber exports who would identify the hackers and their motives for targetting the judge. It will also probe the potential theft of the judge’s phone data, email and messages, during the hacking attempt. It hasn’t been decided as to who would head the FIA team to probe the cyber attack.

On Tuesday, Supreme Court Registrar Khawaja Daud Ahmad requested FIA Director General Wajid Zia to form a team of experts to probe this phone hacking issue.

“I am directed to state that the personal cell phone of Justice Qazi Faez Isa, judge of this court, was hacked on Jan 29, 2021 (Saturday) and his lordship learnt of this early Sunday morning. I am therefore directed to request you [Wajid Zia] to depute a technical team to assess his lordship’s cell phone in respect of hacking status and apprise about the same at the earliest,” stated Registrar Supreme Court’s letter quoted by Geo News.

The SC had also issued an official statement to inform the public that the personal cell phone of Justice Qazi Faez Isa was hacked.

“There is suspicion that misleading communication can be made from his lordship’s number to anyone with ulterior motives,” read the SCP’s official statement. “Therefore, the communication purportedly made from his lordship’s cell phone, which his lordship had not sent, may be treated as fake and false,” the official statement added.

IT expert Dr Umar Saif, while talking about the hacking of the judge’s phone, said there were two ways to hack a cell phone: one is to take over other person’s Whatsapp by stealing the confirmation code, while the second, more sophisticated one, is to hack the entire operating system of the cell phone.

Both techniques are being used to hack phones in Pakistan, he said, adding that an Israeli cybersecurity firm built a software named Pegasus to hack the phones in 2016.

Pegasus malware is spyware that can hack any device and steal a variety of data from the infected device, including text messages, emails, key logs, audio and information from installed applications, such as Facebook or Instagram. The spyware can record conversations and video as well as snap pictures from the device’s camera.

The malware was created by NSO Group, an Israeli cybersecurity firm founded in 2010, and has been around since at least the summer of 2016.