A new Pegasus case broke out in Israel after newspapers reported another massive cyber espionage operation against politicians and journalists. Pegasus is a spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group that can be covertly installed on mobile. Pegasus isn’t just surveillance software, it’s the most powerful cyber weapon currently out there.
Pegasus is a software capable of infecting a device in zero-click mode, i.e. in the total absence of messages containing malicious attachments or links and, in addition to several zero days, it exploits the founding principle of any manufacturer of connected devices: making it difficult if not impossible to turn them off. Indeed in 2019, WhatsApp revealed Pegasus had employed a vulnerability in its app to launch zero-click attacks. The spyware would be installed onto a target’s phone by calling the target phone; the spyware would be installed even if the call was not answered!
In the last days Reuters has cited expert sources according to which at least another company, with a profile decidedly more reserved in comparison to NSO, has developed a software (Reign) very similar to Pegasus and therefore able to assume the complete control of any mobile device without leaving evident traces.