Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb refused to dispute or deny the information included in the tapes, which appear to be casual chats in the PM Office rather than taped phone conversations. Instead, she asserted that these just demonstrated that "nothing criminal had occurred. "Off-the-record discussions with officials, though, indicate that concerns about weaknesses in the cyber security of the nation's highest office have sparked alarm bells in all power corridors.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who was in London when the leaks were initially disclosed, gave the go-ahead for the investigation, according to sources at PM House, who described the situation as "very severe."
When asked if the leaks came up in any discussions in London, a top PML-N official who was present replied that PM Shehbaz will take care of the matter when he got back to Pakistan. The prospect of enabling the import of Indian machinery for a power project that concerned Maryam Nawaz Sharif's son-in-law, Raheel, was discussed in a recording of PM Shehbaz that leaked on Saturday. Several PTI leaders posted further recordings on Finance Minister Miftah Ismail and PTI legislators' resignations from the National Assembly on social media on Sunday.
In one recording, the PML-N Vice President Maryam and the premier are said to be speaking about Mr. Ismail, and a voice believed to be Maryam's remarks that the former finance minister "doesn't know what he is doing" and asks for the return of PML-N veteran Ishaq Dar.The prime minister, defense minister Khawaja Asif, attorney general Azam Nazeer Tarar, interior minister Rana Sanaullah, and Ayaz Sadiq are all said to have discussed the resignations of PTI legislators from the National Assembly in a second video recording. A third video purports to show Maryam Nawaz and PM Shehbaz discussing the retirement of former army head Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
The audio leaks, according to a statement from the Ministry of Information's Marriyum Aurangzeb, are "evidence that nothing illegal happened" and that no one had an undue benefit.
Rana Sanaullah attempted to downplay the situation in an interview with Geo News, claiming that until the leaks were probed, it was impossible to say for sure whether the security of the PM House had been compromised. Given how frequently this occurs, he continued, "I don't think we should take them so seriously."
Hacked or bugged?
Although PTI leader Shireen Mazari and others questioned whether the PM Office had been "bugged," former information minister Fawad Chaudhry suggested that this could have been the result of a cyberattack when he tweeted that "In a major cyber attack on PM Office, 100 hours of conversations of the PM and cabinet members have been leaked to an international hacker website."
"The hacker has requested $345,000, or around 8 GB, for detailed records. Political, economic, and security-related topics are discussed. Fawad Chaudhry's assertion that a hacker stole the data appears to be based on claims that a hacker or hacker collective that has previously participated in cyberattacks on behalf of India's neighbor posted a data dump involving communications from the Pakistani PM Office for sale.
Users set a minimum price of roughly 18 0BTC, or Etherscan tokens, worth about $345,000, claiming that the internet films that were leaked were given by the suspected hacker(s) as evidence that they were in fact in possession of crucial data. In addition, other users reported that the alleged hacker(s), who first claimed to have records of talks between Shehbaz Sharif and Imran Khan, the current and former prime ministers, had claimed to have further data. Dawn hasn't been able to independently confirm these reports, though.
Some IT professionals with whom Dawn spoke described the situation as "very bad" and attributed it to the absence of an efficient plan to thwart such large-scale hacks.
This confirmed the worries expressed by Mr. Chaudhry. The PTI leader urged an exhaustive probe into the security breach in a conversation with Dawn and insisted that the results of the investigation must be made public. He said that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) was in charge of ensuring the PM Office's online safety and bugging crucial communications.
A senior military official from the Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR), when approached, similarly blamed IB for the leak and said that the military and its spy agencies have nothing to do with that department.
The official stated that the IB is responsible for the security of the whole Prime Minister Office.
Information technology specialist Shahzad Ahmed told Dawn that without a full examination, it would be difficult to make any claims about the date and manner of the conversations' hacking. He claimed that one of the reasons for the breach was the lack of government policy and interest in preventing cyberattacks on significant state institutions. The tragedy, he hoped, would serve as a wake-up call for the government and not just be forgotten or swept under the rug.
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