Victim’s iPhone hacked by Pegasus spyware weeks after Apple sued NSO

Victim’s iPhone hacked by Pegasus spyware weeks after Apple sued NSO

 Victim’s iPhone hacked by Pegasus spyware weeks after Apple sued NSO

A government customer of NSO Group's Pegasus spyware successfully hacked an Apple iPhone in December, according to new evidence, only weeks after Apple sued the Israeli business in a US court and demanded that it be barred from "harming people" using Apple goods.

From August 2019 to December 2021, phones belonging to four Jordanian human rights defenders, lawyers, and journalists were hacked by government clients of NSO—which appear to be Jordanian government agencies, according to a report published on Tuesday by security researchers at Front Line Defenders (FLD) and Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.

Even though Apple sued NSO in November, the report appears to suggest that Apple customers may still be subject to surveillance by NSO's government clients. Apple said at the time that it was suing NSO and its parent business to "hold them accountable" for "surveillance and targeting of Apple users." It came after Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto discovered an exploit that allowed NSO users to infect iPhones with the company's Pegasus spyware via a weakness in the iMessage feature. The vulnerability has been addressed, according to Apple at the time.

The fact that the targeting we uncovered occurred after the widespread publicity surrounding Apple's lawsuit and notifications to victims is especially remarkable; a firm that truly respected such concerns would have at least paused operations for government clients, such as Jordan, that have a widely publicized track record of human rights concerns, according to the FLD and Citizen Lab report.

The results of the research were "categorically refuted" by Jordan's National Center for Cyber Security. The statement told the Associated Press, "These claims are false, and Jordan has not worked with any agencies to eavesdrop on people's phones or restrict their calls."

An NSO spokesman declined to comment on the results but warned that monitoring dissidents, activists, and journalist activists by any client would be a "serious abuse" of the company's product.

Pegasus can hack any phone, intercept texts and emails, examine a user's images and location, and transform the phone into a remote listening device, allowing an NSO client to listen in on a conversation held near the phone.

NSO has stated that it is looking into severe allegations of misuse and that it has no knowledge of how its government clients utilize their spyware. According to the Pentagon, Pegasus is only to be used against severe criminals and terrorists.

A request for comment from Apple was not immediately returned.

According to the claim, three Jordanians' phones were hacked using Pegasus, including a human rights lawyer called Ahmed al-Neimat, who is presently in prison for a case involving demonstrations at the al-Salt state hospital, where a shortage of oxygen is reported to have killed numerous COVID-19 patients.

Between August 2019 and July 2021, human rights lawyer Malik Abu Orabi, who represents al-Neimat and other activists, was hacked at least 21 times, according to the researchers. A third target is Suhair Jaradat, a human rights campaigner and journalist who focuses on women's concerns in the media. The researchers discovered that Jaradat had received SMS and WhatsApp communications with links to the Pegasus malware. According to the researchers, the WhatsApp message impersonated a famous anti-government Twitter account in Jordan.

The findings of the researchers were peer-reviewed and validated by the security lab of Amnesty International.

The newest development comes as NSO looks to be at odds with Berkeley Research Group, a consultant that took over the administration of the fund that owns NSO last year. BRG issued the fund's previous owners in London, claiming fresh revelations regarding the fund's purportedly strained relationship with NSO.

 

According to a witness statement filed by Finbarr O'Connor, the managing director of BRG in New York, NSO's management has been "essentially non-existent" since it began managing the fund that owns the Israeli firm. According to O'Connor, BRG "still does not have enough information" to explain "historic activities" by NSO that led to the Biden administration's placing NSO on a commerce department blacklist.

Questions concerning BRG's accusations were not answered by NSO. Following the launch of the Pegasus project, an investigation into NSO by Forbidden Stories, journalistic cooperation that includes the Guardian, last year, the claims raised issues about the corporate supervision of the company's top leadership. According to the Pegasus project, hundreds of people, including journalists, activists, and government officials, were hacked or targeted by NSO's government customers.

According to O'Connor's witness testimony, NSO had begun attempts to locate possible US-based investors in early 2021, but the work had been "halted as a result of the Pegasus "The project had a detriment negative impact on investor interest.

In response to a request for comment on good behavior, NSO did not react.

Separately, NSO issued in France before Salah Hammouri, a French-Palestinian human rights activist is suing NSO along with the International Federation and the Human Rights League for violating privacy rights in France.

Cell phones were hacked but paraded in Jerusalem, and five Palestinian human rights activists using Pegasus, a premium graphic program for NSO, at the FLD Papers House in November. Technical specialists of Citizen Lab and the AI ​​Security Laboratory, regarding the most significant of these attacks, independently confirmed the results of the FLD "with high confidence".

This can be confirmed as NSO, which is responsible for full product and data development.