It’s today been reported that Pegasus spyware hacked iPhones belonging to senior European Union officials, including that of the European Justice Commissioner.
NSO denies that its spyware was used, though the company’s past contradictory statements don’t lend the denial too much credibility …
Background
NSO Group makes spyware called Pegasus, which is sold to government and law enforcement agencies. The company purchases so-called zero-day vulnerabilities (ones that are unknown to Apple) from hackers, and its software is capable of mounting zero-click exploits – where no user interaction is required by the target.
In particular, simply receiving a particular iMessage – without opening it or interacting with it in any way – could allow an iPhone to be compromised, with most personal data exposed.
Apple patches vulnerabilities as they come to light, while NSO purchases details of new ones. The Cupertino company now also proactively looks for signs that iPhones have been compromised by Pegasus, and sends an alert to victims.
Pegasus spyware hacked iPhones of senior EU officials
Reuters reports that it was alerts from Apple that led to the EU attacks being identified.
Senior officials at the European Commission were targeted last year with spy software designed by an Israeli surveillance firm, according to two EU officials and documentation reviewed by Reuters.
Among them was Didier Reynders, a senior Belgian statesman who has served as the European Justice Commissioner since 2019, according to one of the documents. At least four other commission staffers were also targeted […]
The commission became aware of the targeting following messages issued by Apple to thousands of iPhone owners in November telling them they were “targeted by state-sponsored attackers,” the two EU officials said.
As non-tech employees would not necessarily understand the severity of this warning, a senior tech staffer emailed details of the Pegasus threat, and asked everyone to look out for this message from Apple.
It is unclear at present which country used Pegasus to carry out these attacks.
The NSO group claimed the attacks “could not have happened with NSO’s tools.” While we wouldn’t give much credence to this, Reuters does report that an almost identical piece of spyware is also sold by fellow Israeli company QuaDream.
The US has already banned the import and use of Pegasus, and it’s being suggested that this incident may lead the European Union to do the same.
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