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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

#41

Post by ajkdhcb2 »

solarkraft wrote: post #35
supernova87a wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you mean for example, you keep your Authenticator app on a device completely separate from your phone / disconnected from the internet?

2FA is a good option for securing your centralized accounts. But unfortunately, if you're logged in on your phone and your phone is hacked, well, it's still game over. For crypto currencies it may help to store them on a hardware wallet, since accessing your money will require explicit interaction. But, as far as I understand (please correct me, not up to date with the security mechanisms of hardware wallets), if you…

> if your computer is compromised while doing it, you can still lose it.

The hardware wallet itself has a screen, and requires you to confirm your transactions, so generally not true

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

#42

Post by nisegami »

solarkraft wrote: post #37
heavenlyblue wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would the NSA be motivated to find these vulnerabilities? They already have access to Pegasus :-) ... you don't think they're interested in closing them, do you?

Isn't the NSO on an entity list now? That should mean that the NSA no longer has access to Pegasus.

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

#43

Post by strzzz »

throw8932894 wrote: post #30
markdown wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you use the same device to access your bank accounts, and to browse internet or receive messages, you are like an idiot who does not do backups! Using ones phone for banking, internet, and sms is completely normal. Saying that 99.9999999999999999% of the world population that owns smartphones is an idiot isn't helpful. The idiots are the governments of the world that haven't sanctioned Israel for allowing the co…

Quoted post unavailable.

Govt of Israel has sure power over NSO operations.

>A yearlong Times investigation, including dozens of interviews with government officials, leaders of intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, cyberweapons experts, business executives and privacy activists in a dozen countries, shows how Israel’s ability to approve or deny access to NSO’s cyberweapons has become entangled with its diplomacy. Countries like Mexico and Panama have shifted their positions toward Israel in key votes at the United Nations after winning access to Pegasus. [1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/magazine/nso-group-israel...

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

#44

Post by andylynch »

octoberfranklin wrote: post #23

When are governments going to finally realize that voice calls, text, and maybe plaintext email are enough for work phones? Is playing Candy Crush on your work phone really a mission-critical cyberpriority? All the high-security executive/legislative people (at least in the US) have two phones: the personal phone and the work phone. Whoever made the decision for the work phones to be "smart" needs to be fired. The ol…

I'm sure they want to be able to share pictures, video and use Powerpoint too... there is a published of commercial mobile devices certified for classified use at https://www.nsa.gov/Resources/Commercial-Solutions-for-Class..., (looks like they mostly have Samsung Galaxies) .

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

#45

Post by HatchedLake721 »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #19

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.

It’s already been patched long time ago.

No one is running around with anger.

This is unprecedented and new information is coming out that shows how influential people, opposition and politicians were targeted worldwide.

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

#46

Post by maratc »

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…

I would suggest waiting, since there are news about a deal to sell NSO to a US venture fund. We could then refer to it as "US spyware" and skip the renaming part.

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

#47

Post by baybal2 »

throw8932894 wrote: post #30
markdown wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you use the same device to access your bank accounts, and to browse internet or receive messages, you are like an idiot who does not do backups! Using ones phone for banking, internet, and sms is completely normal. Saying that 99.9999999999999999% of the world population that owns smartphones is an idiot isn't helpful. The idiots are the governments of the world that haven't sanctioned Israel for allowing the co…

Quoted post unavailable.

> Israel government is not responsible for Pegasus.

Every sale of Pegasus was cleared by the cabinet.

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

#48

Post by bigbizisverywyz »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #6
tiku wrote: post #2

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

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…

It was an amazing technical achievement that they pulled off, but also a lot of work instantly destroyed with one patch.

Somebody's day got ruined when that was discovered.

And kudos to the Google project zero guys for an amazing writeup.

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

#49

Post by qwerty456127 »

HatchedLake721 wrote: post #45
qwerty456127 wrote: post #19

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.

It’s already been patched long time ago. No one is running around with anger. This is unprecedented and new information is coming out that shows how influential people, opposition and politicians were targeted worldwide.

Good for us if it's so. I'm just concerned about the bugs existed for long enough for the exploit to be relevant and still haunting some diplomats' phones, despite so many publications. And many people discussing legal and political (doomed to be inefficient IMHO) rather than technical solutions.

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

#50

Post by rosndo »

throw8932894 wrote: post #21
supernova87a wrote: post #18

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 / manipu…

Someone who has access to Pegasus is not going after finances. I had modest amount of ethereum on my PC, was hacked, but I still had control over my wallet. If you have $1M+ it should not be tied to your sim card, GMail account etc... If you use the same device to access your bank accounts, and to browse internet or receive messages, you are like an idiot who does not do backups!

Haha.

It’s regular government employees who get access to Pegasus. I’d be shocked if it had never been used in an unauthorized manner for straight up financial crimes.

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