Security News
Israel's Ministry of Defense says the nation's government has visited spyware-for-governments developer NSO Group to investigate allegations its wares have been widely - and perhaps willingly - misused. The allegations were raised by Amnesty International and a consortium of newspapers that gained access to a 50,000-entry list of mobile phone numbers claimed to have been touched by NSO's Pegasus product - spyware that makes a smartphone an open book.
French lawmakers have launched an investigation into Israeli offensive cybersecurity company NSO Group after they learned French President Emmanuel Macron topped a list of 14 heads of states potentially targeted by the company's spyware. The world leaders were potential targets, according to a list of 50,000 phone numbers believed linked to the NSO Group and leaked to Amnesty International and the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories.
French President Emmanuel Macron leads a list of 14 current or former heads of state who may have been targeted for hacking by clients of the notorious Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, Amnesty International said Tuesday. Among potential targets found on a list of 50,000 phone numbers leaked to Amnesty and the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories include Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and Barham Salih of Iraq.
News of a zero-click zero-day in Apple's iMessage feature being incorporated into the notorious Pegasus mobile spyware from NSO Group has drawn a variety of reactions from the security community, including concerns about the security of Apple's closed ecosystem, and varying views on NSO Group's culpability for how Pegasus is used. He added, "Apple aims their statements about security and privacy at consumers. However, the majority of the individuals targeted by the NSO group are not categorized as typical consumers and Apple needs to recognize that securing these individuals may require help from third parties."
iPhones have been compromised by the NSO Group's Pegasus spyware. The findings indicated that the Pegasus spyware program sold by surveillance company NSO Group was able to infect iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 models through zero-click attacks in the iOS iMessage app.
The United Nations' human rights chief voiced alarm Monday over the reported use of military-grade malware from Israel-based NSO Group to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet's comments came after an investigation by a global media consortium based on leaked targeting data provided further evidence of the malware's use.
A sweeping probe into a data leak of more than 50,000 phone numbers has revealed an extensive misuse of Israeli company NSO Group's Pegasus "Military-grade spyware" to facilitate human rights violations by surveilling heads of state, activists, journalists, and lawyers around the world. "The Pegasus Project lays bare how NSO's spyware is a weapon of choice for repressive governments seeking to silence journalists, attack activists and crush dissent, placing countless lives in peril," Amnesty International's Secretary-General, Agnès Callamard, said.
So the first vulnerability is based on the fact that the cell around network and the connectivity between cell networks around the world is built in such a way that whenever there is some, some sort of message call or any other message to be others to you. Connected to the, over the set alarm network, but eventually it is connected to the open internet and the like any device connected to the open internet.
Israeli-based NSO Group is being blasted in a groundbreaking report that alleges that the company's controversial Pegasus malware is being used to target activists, journalists, business executives and politicians on a widespread level, using a variety of exploits - including a zero-click zero-day in iOS. A consortium of journalists leveled the allegations in a report called Pegasus Project, which was published Sunday. It examined leaked data from the NSO Group, which revealed a cache of more than 50,000 mobile phone numbers worldwide that the firm was storing, according to the report published by the Guardian newspaper.
Human rights non-governmental organization Amnesty International and non-profit project Forbidden Stories revealed in a recent report that they found spyware made by Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group deployed on iPhones running Apple's latest iOS release, hacked using zero-day zero-click iMessage exploits. Citizen Lab was able to independently observe NSO Pegasus spyware deployed on an iPhone 12 Pro Max running iOS 14.6, hacked via a zero-day zero-click iMessage exploit, which does not require interaction from the target.