Daily Post 2996
PEGASUS KEEPS STRIKING BACK!
Pegasus was developed by 2011, a military grade spyware, which it has proved to be in the last 13 years of its existence. Created by Israeli cyber-intelligence firm NSO group in 2011, it still rules the roost in the area of its expertise, with even sheer detection next to impossible. It was designed to covertly infiltrate and monitor mobile phones running iOS and Android and its been doing so, successfully across geographies and governments. It has been an issue of intense debate, whilst it continues its unabated run, with unproven legality. It has even surmounted criminal investigations, enquiries and worldwide collaborative journalistic endeavours, scathing reports and on the ground backlash.
There is no antidote to Pegasus, to successfully detect or mitigate, once the device has been taken over in any manner. That is where the problem lies. Every mobile device owner cannot create a mobile forensic lab for himself. Still what will be the result, one is not sure of. Even the best and biggest of the cyber security companies have not been of great use. The threat of Pegasus already looming large seems to keep on increasing, completely surreptitiously. The new age cyber security companies, with innovative products and proactive innovative approaches are likely to deliver better against it.
The spyware rot needs to be stemmed, otherwise everyone is at risk. A very recent headline, “Israeli NSO Group’s Spyware Detected in New Mobile Devices,” sends chills down the spine of the people who understand the consequences. iVerify, a new age mobile threat hunting company that provides mobile security solutions, is at the core of this revelation. It says that there are widespread new infections of the Pegasus spyware (dubbed “Rainbow Ronin”), with targets not limited to activists and journalists but transcending to professionals and civilians. iVerify’s recently launched Mobile Threat Hunting feature has successfully detected multiple instances of Pegasus used in this manner.
Extensive scans conducted by iVerify researchers have uncovered key findings. 2,500 self-scanned devices yielded 7 Pegasus infections, infection rate of 2.5 per 1,000 scans, is much higher than previous scans and infections dating back 2021 have been found, spanning multiple iOS versions. The issue now is; it is only when you scan for it, you will find it. It remains hiding behind plainsight, for sure undetected by traditional cyber security measures. This revelation challenges the earlier notion of Pegasus’s targets. The research findings are based on scanned devices belonging to higher risk populations, but the detection rate suggests a more widespread problem than previously acknowledged.
THIS REVELATION SPELLS THE DEMISE OF THE BELIEF THAT MOBILE DEVICE SECURITY IS GOOD ENOUGH.
Sanjay Sahay