Despite the hype, iPhone security no match for NSO spyware
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Source: Washington Post
The text delivered last month to the iPhone 11 of Claude Mangin, the French wife of a political activist jailed in Morocco, made no sound. It produced no image. It offered no warning of any kind as an iMessage from somebody she didnt know delivered malware directly onto her phone and past Apples security systems.
Once inside, the spyware, produced by Israels NSO Group and licensed to one of its government clients, went to work, according to a forensic examination of her device by Amnesty Internationals Security Lab. It found that between October and June, her phone was hacked multiple times with Pegasus, NSOs signature surveillance tool, during a time when she was in France.
The examination was unable to reveal what was collected. But the potential was vast: Pegasus can collect emails, call records, social media posts, user passwords, contact lists, pictures, videos, sound recordings and browsing histories, according to security researchers and NSO marketing materials. The spyware can activate cameras or microphones to capture fresh images and recordings. It can listen to calls and voice mails. It can collect location logs of where a user has been and also determine where that user is now, along with data indicating whether the person is stationary or, if moving, in which direction.
And all of this can happen without a user even touching her phone or knowing she has received a mysterious message from an unfamiliar person in Mangins case, a Gmail user going by the name linakeller2203.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/07/19/apple-iphone-nso/