Pegasus Spyware Runs Roughshod over Human Rights

2 minute read | Last updated 21-Jul-2021 |Vulnerabilities, Security

The Pegasus Project is a collaborative effort by a number of media and advocacy organizations around to the world. With their work, they are shining a light on nation state use a specific malware tool: Pegasus spyware.

Learn more in this short…

Transcript

The Pegasus Project shines a light on an area of cybersecurity not often seen. A collaborative effort across the globe, this reporting dives deeply into the Pegasus spyware sold by the NSO Group and how it’s been used around the world.

[00:00:11] There is a lot to this story and I strongly recommend that you read all of the analysis.

The use of Pegasus is a clear example of what happens when nation states leverage malware to their advantage. Any individual or organization facing a nation state adversary is at an almost insurmountable disadvantage.

[00:00:28] What this situation does highlight is the need for an active, engaged, and well-supported security research community. Security researchers that find vulnerabilities and then responsibly disclose them have a disproportionately positive impact on our security.

[00:00:42] Reporting one critical iPhone vulnerability to Apple so that they can fix it, improves the security of over 1 billion users.

We need to embrace the security research community and help them where we can. It won’t stop issues like Pegasus, but it will help even the odds a little bit.

References

• from the Washington Post, “Takeaways from the Pegasus Project”

• also from the Washington Post, “Private Israeli spyware used to hack cellphones of journalists, activists worldwide”

• The Guardian’s coverage, “The Pegasus project”

• from PBS, “THE PEGASUS PROJECT Live Blog: Major Stories from Partners”

• Amnesty International with, “Pegasus Project: Apple iPhones compromised by NSO spyware”

• The Citizen Lab has, “Independent Peer Review of Amnesty International’s Forensic Methods for Identifying Pegasus Spyware”

• “Apple Now Has Over 1 Billion Active iPhones Worldwide, 1.65 Billion Total Devices”, by Mac Rumors