Security researchers say they have found evidence that a journalist and human rights defender’s iPhone was hacked with the Pegasus spyware just weeks after Apple sued the spyware’s maker NSO Group to stop it from targeting Apple device users.
Zack Whittaker for techCrunch:
Award-winning journalist Suhair Jaradat’s phone was hacked with the notorious spyware as recently as December 5, 2021, according to an analysis of her phone by Front Line Defenders and Citizen Lab that was shared with TechCrunch ahead of its publication. Jaradat was sent a WhatsApp message from someone impersonating a popular anti-government critic with links to the Pegasus spyware, compromising her phone. According to the forensic analysis, Jaradat’s iPhone was hacked several times in the preceding months and as far back as February 2021.
Apple had filed a lawsuit against Israeli spyware maker NSO Group in November 2021, seeking a court-issued injunction aimed at banning NSO from using Apple’s products and services to develop and deploy hacks against its customers.
The NSO-built Pegasus spyware gives its government customers near-complete access to a target’s device, including their personal data, photos, messages and precise location. Many victims have received text messages with malicious links, but Pegasus has more recently been able to silently hack iPhones without any user interaction, or so-called “zero-click” attacks.
Apple last year bolstered iPhone security by introducing BlastDoor, a new but unseen security feature designed to filter out malicious payloads sent over iMessage that could compromise a device…
According to the U.S. State Department, Jordan is accused of “significant human rights issues,” including censorship, restrictions on free speech, and “substantial restrictions on freedom of association and freedom of peaceful assembly.”
MacDailyNews Take: As Potter Stewart said, “Censorship reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.”
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Shop The Apple Store at Amazon.
