Citizen Lab researchers discovered that nine Bahrain activists were spied on with the Pegasus tool developed by NSO Group.The "Zero-Click" attack was carried out through the well-known 2020 Exploit Kismet and the new Exploit Forcedentry which uses an iMessage vulnerability.The telephone numbers associated with four iPhones were included in the list of the Pegasus Project in late July.
Pegasus evades Blastdoor functionality
The spyware was previously installed on iPhone with operating system 13.5.1 To take advantage of the Kismet Exploit.Apple included the Blastdoor function in iOS 14 which makes it more difficult to carry out a zero-click attack (without user interaction) through iMessage.NSO Group has updated Pegasus, in order to evade the functionality with the new exploit, called Forcendentry from Citizen Lab, which also works on iOS 14.4 and 14.6.
Apple confirmed that he had started investigations on the security problem.At the moment a patch has not been released, but a spokesman for the Cupertino company has communicated that Blastdoor does not represent the definitive solution.With iOS 15 the security of iMessage will be further improved.
Bahrain, one of the most repressive states in the world, is among the NSO Group customers.The Israeli company does not obviously provide the list, but has repeatedly declared that she does not sell Pegasus to governments that violate human rights.The only purpose of the tool is to prevent terrorist attacks and other serious crimes.It is clear, however, that Pegasus is widely used to implement espionage campaigns against high -profile people.
Fonte: The Citizen Lab