Security News
A new national cyber strategy will be launched by year-end, the National Cyber Security Centre's chief exec has promised - while calling out spyware vendor NSO Group as a "Red flag" for the UK infosec community. Lindy Cameron told the Chatham House international affairs think tank that NSO Group was "Something we raised a red flag about before, that the commercial market for sophisticated cyber exploitation products is an issue."
NSO Group's Pegasus malware was used to spy on Dubai princess's lawyers during child custody dispute
Cherie Blair tipped off a Jordanian princess that the royal's estranged husband, the Sheikh of Dubai, had deployed NSO Group's Pegasus malware against her and her lawyers, a series of explosive High Court judgments [PDFs] have revealed. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the absolute ruler of Dubai, was found to have ordered the deployment of one of the world's most potent malware strains against Princess Haya bint Hussein, his former wife and a member of the Jordanian royal family, during a bitter court battle over custody of their children.
A malware peddler has created a fake website posing as Amnesty International to serve gullible marks with software that claims to protect users against NSO Group's Pegasus malware. Trading on fears about the Pegasus malware, this development takes the usual evolution of malware download lures and picks a particularly nasty vector, preying on those looking for protection against advanced threats.
Apple has released security updates to fix three zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in the wild by attackers to hack into iPhones and Macs running older iOS and macOS versions. Based on the info shared by Apple in today's security advisories [1, 2] at least one of the bugs was likely used to deploy NSO Pegasus spyware on hacked devices.
Apple on Monday issued security patches for its mobile and desktop operating systems, and for its WebKit browser engine, to address two security flaws, at least one of which was, it is said, used by autocratic governments to spy on human rights advocates. On August 24, 2021, researchers with the organization reported that the iPhones of nine Bahraini activists had been hacked between June 2020 and February 2021 using NSO Group's Pegasus spyware and two zero-click iMessage exploits.
Apple users should immediately update all their devices - iPhones, iPads, Macs and Apple Watches - to install an emergency patch for a zero-click zero-day exploited by NSO Group to install spyware. The security updates, pushed out by Apple on Monday, include iOS 14.8 for iPhones and iPads, as well as new updates for Apple Watch and macOS. The patches will fix at least one vulnerability that the tech behemoth said "May have been actively exploited."
Apple has released security updates to fix two zero-day vulnerabilities that have been seen exploited in the wild to attack iPhones and Macs. The CVE-2021-30860 CoreGraphics vulnerability is an integer overflow bug discovered by Citizen Lab that allows threat actors to create malicious PDF documents that execute commands when opened in iOS and macOS. CVE-2021-30858 is a WebKit use after free vulnerability allowing hackers to create maliciously crafted web page that execute commands when visiting them on iPhones and macOS. Apple states that this vulnerability was disclosed anonymously.
A previously undisclosed "Zero-click" exploit in Apple's iMessage was abused by Israeli surveillance vendor NSO Group to circumvent iOS security protections and target nine Bahraini activists. "The hacked activists included three members of Waad, three members of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, two exiled Bahraini dissidents, and one member of Al Wefaq," researchers from University of Toronto's Citizen Lab said in a report published today, with four of the targets hacked by an actor it tracks as LULU and believed to be the government of Bahrain.
A previously undisclosed "Zero-click" exploit in Apple's iMessage was abused by Israeli surveillance vendor NSO Group to circumvent iOS security protections and target nine Bahraini activists. "The hacked activists included three members of Waad, three members of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, two exiled Bahraini dissidents, and one member of Al Wefaq," researchers from University of Toronto's Citizen Lab said in a report published today, with four of the targets hacked by an actor it tracks as LULU and believed to be the government of Bahrain.
Digital threat researchers at Citizen Lab have uncovered a new zero-click iMessage exploit used to deploy NSO Group's Pegasus spyware on devices belonging to Bahraini activists. The spyware was deployed on their devices after being compromised using two zero-click iMessage exploits: the 2020 KISMET exploit and a new never-before-seen exploit dubbed FORCEDENTRY. New iPhone zero-click exploit in use since February 2021.