Pegasus died, long live the predator

You may not have been aware of this, but NSO Group isn’t the only company that offers tailored mobile hacking services. A new survey signed by Citizen Lab reveals the extent of another such program called… Predator. You can’t make it up. developer? A company by the name of Cytrox, also unsurprisingly based in Israel.

The program has already caused the deaths of several main victims, including a political refugee and TV presenter, both of whom are Egyptian. It was alleged that Ayman Nour, of the ruling opposition, was monitored by several government agencies at the same time. Its operating system at the time was iOS, however its publisher sold it as more secure than Android alternatives.

Many countries already have customers!

According to Citizen Lab investigations, at least eight states have so far got their hands on Predator, and it’s clear their exact motives have yet to be determined. Officials here are Saudi Arabia, Oman, Serbia, Greece, Madagascar, Armenia, Indonesia, and thus Egypt. There are many areas where authoritarian abuses are common.

The method that this spyware uses to hack a journalist’s iPhone appears to be the same as that used to access Jeff Bezos’ content. As a reminder, this is a simple WhatsApp message from a stranger and contains a corrupted link. on which the target has clicked, which is not entirely recommended in this kind of situation. But it is not always easy to tell from generation to generation …

What data is at risk?

The Citizen Lab report shows that Predator can access many Apple services, including the Safari browser, App Store, Maps, and even more sensitive services like Camera and Mail. Worse: Some end-to-end encrypted messaging services like Signal and Telegram have also been affected, an indication that such alternatives are not 100% secure.

If you are also worried that you might get scanned by a spyware one day, know that there are some strategies to guard against possible negative consequences. You can find it here.