It became clear how the Pegasus spyware, developed by Israel-based NSO Group, was unearthed. A fake image file accidentally left on an activist’s iPhone has exposed software used since at least 2016.
Pegasus discovered through bugs
Saudi Arabian activist Loujain al-Hathloul said government-sponsored hackers from Google tried to hack into his Gmail account after he was jailed for harming national security and was released in February 2021. Received an e-mail notifying you. Having experienced similar situations before, al-Hathloul contacted Citizen Lab, worried that his iPhone might be under attack, and asked them to check the device.
Citizen Lab researchers, who started working on this, realized that after examining the records for about 6 months, a malfunction in the surveillance software placed on the device left a copy of the malicious image file instead of deleting itself. After the studies were completed, evidence was discovered that the surveillance software on the iPhone was NSO’s Pegasus software.
Pegasus spyware was discovered in this way, and in this way, necessary software updates were offered to users without affecting thousands of people in line with the measures taken.
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