What happened?

Activists, journalists and politicians around the world have been eavesdropped on over the phone, it was reported recently, raising concerns about privacy and human rights abuses. The use of the software, Pegasus, developed by the Israeli group NSO, was reported by the Washington Post, the Guardian, Le Monde and other media that collaborated in a data-taking investigation.

The wiretapping includes a list of 50,000 phone numbers believed to have been identified as people of interest by NSO customers since 2016, reports said.

What is Pegasus?

Pegasus is an eavesdropping software created by the Israeli firm NSO Group that can be secretly installed on mobile phones that use most versions of iOS and Android. The findings suggest that the current Pegasus app is able to utilize all the latest versions of iOS up to iOS 14.6.

What can Pegasus do?

Pegasus is probably the most powerful eavesdropping software ever created by a private company. Once installed on the phone, Pegasus can monitor the device at all times - it can copy messages, record calls, take photos or secretly activate the camera and microphone. It can potentially determine where a person is, where they have been and who they have met.

Reliable data show that this software can be obtained even without clicks anywhere, in so-called "zero click" attacks, which do not require user interaction.

Researchers suspect that the latest versions of Pegasus are only installed on the phone's cache, and not on the hard drive, which means that once the phone is turned on, almost all traces of the program disappear.

Who uses it?

The NSO does not explicitly say who buys the software, but the company's website says the products are used exclusively "by government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fight crime and terror."

NSO lawyers claimed the technical report was conjecture, describing it as "a compilation of speculative and unfounded assumptions". However, they did not object to any of the specific findings or conclusions.

One of the most significant challenges Pegasus presents to journalists and human rights defenders is the fact that the software exploits undetected vulnerabilities, which means that even the most security-conscious phone user cannot prevent an attack. Practically, Pegasus is "elusive".

Sources: Guardian, France24, TechCrunch