Israeli spyware from NSO has been the subject of much discussion over the past year. One of the most recent incidents involved hacking the WhatsApp and using it to install spyware on both iPhones and Android devices.
The current hack was revealed by the Financial Times. A report published by the Financial Times states that NSO's Pegasus servers Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft.
NSO denies that it promotes espionage and hacking, however, according to the Financial Times, "the company has not disputed that it has developed the capability to do so.".
An infected phone will provide NSO software with authentication credentials for all cloud services, including Google Drive, Facebook Messenger, and iCloud..
NSO's Pegasus software has been described as one of the most sophisticated smartphone spyware. Phones can be compromised to such an extent that they can provide access to the entire system, cloud services and everything related to them.
According to the Financial Times, Amazon claims it has no evidence that a breach has occurred that would allow access to its systems. Facebook has also stated the same. However, it said it would conduct an audit. Microsoft and Apple said they conduct ongoing audits and have built several security measures into their platforms. Google did not comment.
NSO itself said the following: “We do not present or sell anything that could be used for hacking or espionage.”
Smartphone breaches are a common occurrence. There have been many malicious apps found on the Google Play Store, the NSO WhatsApp vulnerability has been discovered, there has been an attack that has affected WhatsApp and Telegram again, and these days FaceApp, which is being heard a lot about.
hacking attacks state-level. With NSO's spyware, hacking between states is being promoted and this is very worrying.
In May, Amnesty International and other human rights groups filed a lawsuit in Israel seeking to revoke an export license for software NSO. The groups said the software has been used by dictatorial regimes to spy on activists and journalists. It was also used by Saudi Arabia to spy on journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered. NSO denies that its software played any role in Khashoggi’s surveillance.
