Tech company Apple has sued the Israeli company NSO, which makes Pegasus, Apple has said that the company is targeting more than one billion iPhones. Apple says that there are 1.65 billion active Apple devices worldwide, of which more than 1 billion are iPhones.
There are already many cases going on against NSO. The company’s Pegasus spyware has been in controversy in many countries including India for a long time. There were reports in which it was told that thousands of activists, journalists, and politicians were spied with this spyware.
US administration has blacklisted NSO a few weeks ago. The company was accused of trying to create international pressure in collusion with foreign governments. Apple has made a statement in a federal court in California that to protect its users from harm, Apple wants a permanent ban on NSO Group from using Apple’s software, services, and devices in any way.
Pegasus is spyware. Spyware means the software used for spying or surveillance. Through this, any phone can be hacked. After hacking, all the information including the camera, mic, messages, and calls of that phone goes to the hacker. This spyware is made by the Israeli company NSO Group.
Pegasus can be installed remotely on any phone or any other device. Pegasus can also be installed on your phone with just a missed call. Not only this, but it can also be installed on your phone through WhatsApp messages, text messages, SMS, and social media.
July, news portal ‘The Wire’ claimed in its report that the Indian government spied around 300 Indians between 2017 and 2019. These people include journalists, lawyers, social workers, opposition leaders, and businessmen. The government had hacked the phones of these people through the Pegasus spyware of the NSO company. After this report, the government has clarified all the allegations as baseless.
Is there any way to detect spyware on mobile?
According to Nishikant Ojha, Cyber Security Advisor at Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Limited (BECIL), there are two ways-
- Your mobile started behaving unexpectedly. It started getting hot. Memory gets corrupted. Messages of WhatsApp or Telegram suddenly started getting deleted.
- Spyware like Pegasus is modern. Forensic analysis is done to detect tools like this. The toolkit is tested. Amnesty’s Mobile Verification Toolkit (MVT) can help detect this.
