NSO Group's iPhone Zero-Days used against a UAE Human Rights Defender

An untethered stealth jailbreak that installs without user interaction from a webview, that's almost as bad as it gets. And for iOS 7.0.0 - 9.3.4 inclusive. And with exfiltration of audio, video, whatsapp, viber, etc etc. So thorough and so bad :-/

Re: NSO Group's iPhone Zero-Days used against a UAE Human Rights Defender

#5

Post by drewbug » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

0x0 wrote: post #4

An untethered stealth jailbreak that installs without user interaction from a webview, that's almost as bad as it gets. And for iOS 7.0.0 - 9.3.4 inclusive. And with exfiltration of audio, video, whatsapp, viber, etc etc. So thorough and so bad :-/

Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JailbreakMe

Re: NSO Group's iPhone Zero-Days used against a UAE Human Rights Defender

#6

Post by Miner49er » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

This vulnerability sounds like this:

https://www.zerodium.com/ios9.html

It was claimed November of last year. I wouldn't be surprised if this "Trident" was sold by Zerodium. Glad it's patched.

Edit:

I just saw the Citizen Lab article on this:

https://citizenlab.org/2016/08/million-dollar-dissident-ipho...

They mention the Zerodium bounty as well.

Re: NSO Group's iPhone Zero-Days used against a UAE Human Rights Defender

#7

Post by landr0id » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:33 PM UTC

This is off-topic but at first I thought I was on a Spotify blog page. Lookout has very similar branding.

Re: NSO Group's iPhone Zero-Days used against a UAE Human Rights Defender

#8

Post by linkregister » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:34 PM UTC

Amazing work by Lookout and Citizen Lab.

Until this point I was not aware that Lookout provided any value-add for mobile devices. I was under the impression it was the McAfee of mobile.

It sounds mean but this is the first reference to actual vulnerability discovery done by themselves on their blog, which usually reports on security updates that Google's Android security team discovered. Previous entries include such gems as "Now available: The Practical Guide to Enterprise Mobile Security" and "Insights from Gartner: When and How to Go Beyond EMM to Ensure Secure Enterprise Mobility."

I can't wait to see more great work. Lookout is now on my radar.

Re: NSO Group's iPhone Zero-Days used against a UAE Human Rights Defender

#9

Post by explorigin » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:34 PM UTC

bkmintie wrote: post #3

Vice has a nice writeup on the exploits as well: https://motherboard.vice.com/read/government-hackers-iphone-...

FTA: It appears that the company that provided the spyware and the zero-day exploits to the hackers targeting Mansoor is a little-known Israeli surveillance vendor called NSO, which Lookout’s vice president of research Mike Murray labeled as “basically a cyber arms dealer.”

Phineas Fisher, we need you now.

Re: NSO Group's iPhone Zero-Days used against a UAE Human Rights Defender

#10

Post by scosman » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

Does anyone know if the iOS 10 developer beta 7 (public beta 6) got this patch, or are we vulnerable?