Apple has sent out notifications to users in 100 countries that their devices have been infected with spyware, believed to be Pegasus from Israeli company NSO. The tech giant has urged recipients to take the information seriously and take immediate security measures.
Image source: apple.com
The Israeli company NSO has been developing software for remotely hacking iPhones for several years now and selling it to government agencies in various countries, without really going into which ones. These actions have led to numerous incidents with journalists, opponents of the current government, human rights activists, lawyers and other activists around the world.
Apple tries to block this spyware whenever a new version appears, but the sophisticated nature of the attack schemes makes it difficult. The American tech giant made significant progress in solving this problem in 2021, adding code to iOS designed to detect iPhone hacking, even if the specific intrusion mechanism is not yet known. Once an attack is detected, Apple notifies victims about it.
Apple threat alerts are designed to inform and help iPhone owners who may have been targeted by intelligence agencies — unlike cybercriminals, they target a very small number of specific individuals, making them much more difficult to detect and prevent. The company sends alerts via iMessage, email, and when you log in to your Apple ID on the web. This week, the company sent out alerts to users in 100 countries around the world — it doesn’t name the spyware, but it cites Pegasus as an example.