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Finnish diplomats’ phones infected with NSO Group Pegasus spyware

bleepingcomputer.com

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Re: Finnish diplomats’ phones infected with NSO Group Pegasus spyware

#11

Post by alufers »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #9
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they use zero-day exploits in common media formats. The spy sends you a message containing an image or pdf, your device parses it, is exploited, and then removes the message, before there ever is a notification about it. You will never know that it ever happened. For example, see FORCEDENTRY, which is one of theirs, and the technical deep dive of it is about the most amazing piece of technical writing released la…

I can't believe that all text messages aren't stored somewhere on the NSA (or equiv.) server (so it should be easy to quickly find the zero-day after a single attack). They probably just aren't motivated enough to expose the zero-days associated with it.

How would you know how a message contains an exploit before you know such an exploit even exists?

Also for iPhones it's usually iMessage instead of SMS which supposedly is e2e encrypted.

Re: Finnish diplomats’ phones infected with NSO Group Pegasus spyware

#13

Post by lgvln »

londons_explore wrote: post #4

I propose that any article like this don't refer to it as "NSO spyware", but instead refer to it as "Israeli spyware". The reality is that while NSO Group is a private company, it has deep links to the Israeli government and generally doesn't allow it's services to be used against the interests of the Israeli state. Hiding behind a corporate name to maintain Israel's reputation in international media isn't really oka…

Very interesting proposition. Israel, directly or indirectly, has a very significant influence in the US and I doubt this will ever happen.

Edit: Typed “never“ instead of “ever”

Re: Finnish diplomats’ phones infected with NSO Group Pegasus spyware

#14

Post by dandanua »

polack wrote: post #7
tiku wrote: post #2

How does it get installed? I'm imagining some spy stealing the phone and installing it.

Contrary to popular belief, iPhones and Android phones have really poor security and new exploits are discovered all the time. So a properly formatted text message is all that's required these days. It's like in the dotcom days when 90% of the web was open to SQL injection.

Meanwhile, they take 30% cut from developers and force everyone to buy a new phone every year. Microsoft monopolization of Windows is a child play in comparison to this phone racket.

Re: Finnish diplomats’ phones infected with NSO Group Pegasus spyware

#15

Post by iqanq »

squarefoot wrote: post #10
iqanq wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Painting critics of the Israeli Government as anti semite is among the most used smearing tactics to damage their credibility. Therefore, by the same reasoning, you could be accused of acting as a shill for the Mossad.

I know, it was a bad joke :P

Re: Finnish diplomats’ phones infected with NSO Group Pegasus spyware

#16

Post by hericium »

lgvln wrote: post #13
londons_explore wrote: post #4

I propose that any article like this don't refer to it as "NSO spyware", but instead refer to it as "Israeli spyware". The reality is that while NSO Group is a private company, it has deep links to the Israeli government and generally doesn't allow it's services to be used against the interests of the Israeli state. Hiding behind a corporate name to maintain Israel's reputation in international media isn't really oka…

Very interesting proposition. Israel, directly or indirectly, has a very significant influence in the US and I doubt this will ever happen. Edit: Typed “never“ instead of “ever”

No post body was provided.

Re: Finnish diplomats’ phones infected with NSO Group Pegasus spyware

#17

Post by tjpnz »

iqanq wrote: post #15
squarefoot wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Painting critics of the Israeli Government as anti semite is among the most used smearing tactics to damage their credibility. Therefore, by the same reasoning, you could be accused of acting as a shill for the Mossad.

I know, it was a bad joke :P

Maybe use /s next time.

Re: Finnish diplomats’ phones infected with NSO Group Pegasus spyware

#18

Post by supernova87a »

Although I'm certainly no celebrity / important likely target of hackers, I'm interested in this just because recently I've gotten paranoid about my financial accounts (after a company I used to work for finally went public and I was fortunate to cash out an amount of $).

When hackers use such exploits, do they then basically have something like remote control over your phone, and can start exfiltrating data / manipulating apps while you're not paying attention? Or what do they do with it then? Are you able to tell, by seeing your phone slow down or start to have unexplained screen behaviors? Suppose that I'm logged into my Google apps on my phone, does that mean they have access to all my gmail, google docs, etc. as well?

Do these kinds of exploits also exist/get used to target people on their laptops and desktop machines as well? Or is that a little less likely, since your phone is specifically identified with you and people can easily go after your known phone number?

I wonder if there is some resource where people can read about how to detect and avoid such exploits and protect against them?

Re: Finnish diplomats’ phones infected with NSO Group Pegasus spyware

#19

Post by qwerty456127 »

What about patching the vulnerabilities rather than running around with anger? We can sue the hell out of them and convince the Israeli government to ban them altogether but this is obviously doomed to repeat, somebody will inevitably take the place sooner or later, legally or illegally.

Re: Finnish diplomats’ phones infected with NSO Group Pegasus spyware

#20

Post by lgvln »

hericium wrote: post #16
lgvln wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting proposition. Israel, directly or indirectly, has a very significant influence in the US and I doubt this will ever happen. Edit: Typed “never“ instead of “ever”

Quoted post unavailable.

What? That comment wasn’t even made by me.
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