Citizen Lab researchers claim the spyware was delivered silently through iMessage.
According to the latest report from Citizen Lab, around 36 Al Jazeera journalists had their iPhones infected with the Pegasus spyware. Researchers claim that the spyware was developed by the Israeli NSO Group.
The iPhones were secretly infected with the malware by exploiting a vulnerability in Apple iOS. The attackers installed malware on the journalists’ iOS devices, which exposed their phones to snooping.
Most of the targeted journalists were based in Qatar and Doha. Tamer Almisshal, Al Jazeera’s investigative journalist for its Arabic language channel, firstly detected the infection on his iPhone.
See: Ex-employee stole secrets of Israeli spyware NSO Group for dark web deals
Citizen Lab researcher Bill Marczak explained that the infected devices contained unusual communications with Apple servers, and the spy tools exploited the imagent background process in iOS. Its primary function is to manage push notifications for iMessage and FaceTime.
The NSO Group is a spy tech vendor currently involved in a lawsuit by Facebook over the cyberattacks it carried out against 1,400 WhatsApp users back in 2019.
Citizen Lab researchers suspect that the attacks were carried out via spies based in the UAE and Saudi Arabia using NSO malware. The Pegasus operators included a MONARCHY operator from Saudi Arabia and a SNEAKY KESTREL operator from the UAE.< ..
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