Report: Pegasus Spyware Sold to Governments Uses Zero-Click iMessage Exploit to Infect iPhones Running iOS 14.6

This article has been indexed from MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors – Front Page

Journalists, lawyers, and human rights activists around the world have been targeted by authoritarian governments using phone malware made by Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group, according to multiple media reports.

The leak contains a list of over 50,000 phone numbers that are believed to have been identified by clients of NSO as possible people of interest. Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based nonprofit media organization, and Amnesty International had access to the leaked list and shared that access with media partners as part of reporting consortium the Pegasus project. Forensic tests on some of the phones with numbers on the list indicated that more than half had traces of the spyware.

The company behind the software, NSO, denies any wrongdoing and claims its product is strictly for use against criminals and terrorists, and is made available only to military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

In a statement given to media organizations in response to the Pegasus project, NSO said the original investigation which led to the reports was “full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories.”

NSO does not operate the systems that it sells to vetted government customers, and does not have access to the data of its customers’ targets. NSO does not operate its technology, does not collect, nor possesses, nor has any access to any kind of data of its customers. Due to contractual and national security considerations, NSO cannot confirm or deny the identity of our government customers, as well as identity of customers of which we have shut down systems.

Read the original article: Report: Pegasus Spyware Sold to Governments Uses Zero-Click iMessage Exploit to Infect iPhones Running iOS 14.6