Citizen Lab, a digital watchdog organization, reported on Thursday thatthey had discovered spyware associated with the Israeli company NSO, whichexploited a recently identified vulnerability in Apple devices.
While examining the Apple device of an employee from a civil society groupin Washington last week, Citizen Lab identified that the flaw had beenutilized to infect the device with NSO’s Pegasus spyware, as stated intheir official statement.
Bill Marczak, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, expressed high confidencein attributing the exploit to NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, based on theforensics obtained from the targeted device. The discovery of the spywarewas possible because the attacker likely made an installation error.
Citizen Lab noted that Apple confirmed that using the high-security feature”Lockdown Mode” on Apple devices can thwart this specific attack.
John Scott-Railton, another senior researcher at Citizen Lab, emphasizedthat civil society once again played a crucial role in detecting advancedcyberattacks.
Citizen Lab did not disclose further details about the affected individualor the organization involved.
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The vulnerability allowed iPhones running the latest iOS version (16.6) tobe compromised without any user interaction, but this has been addressed ina new update.
After investigating the flaws reported by Citizen Lab, Apple releasedupdates for its devices. An Apple spokesperson declined to provideadditional comments, while Citizen Lab urged consumers to promptly updatetheir devices.
In response, NSO stated, “We are unable to respond to any allegationswithout accompanying supporting research.
