What is Pegasus?:Pegasus is a spyware developed by the Israeli cyberarms firm NSO Group that can be covertly installed on mobile phones (and other devices) running most versions of iOS and Android. The 2021 Project Pegasus revelations suggest that current Pegasus software is able to exploit all recent iOS versions up to iOS 14.6. According to the Washington Post and other prominent media sources, Pegasus not only enables the keystroke monitoring of all communications from a phone (texts, emails, web searches) but it also enables phone call and location tracking, while also permitting NSO Group to hijack both the mobile phone's microphone and camera, thus turning it into a constant surveillance device.
The company had previously been owned by American private equity firm Francisco Partners, then bought back by the founders in 2019.NSO states that it provides "authorized governments with technology that helps them combat terror and crime", has published sections of contracts requiring customers only to use its products for criminal and national security investigations, and stated that it has an industry-leading approach to human rights. The spyware is named after the mythical winged horse Pegasus,it is a Trojan Horse that can be sent "flying through the air" to infect phones.
Pegasus was discovered in August 2018 after a failed attempt at installing it on an iPhone belonging to a human right activist led to an investigation revealing details about the spyware, its abilities, and the security vulnerabilities it exploited. As of 2016, Pegasus was capable of reading text messages,tracking calls, collecting passwords, tracking location, accessing the target device's microphone and camera, and harvesting information from apps. News of the spyware caused significant media coverage. It was called the "most sophisticated" smartphone attack ever, and was the first time that a malicious remote exploit using jailbreak to gain unrestricted access to an iPhone had been detected.
On August 23, 2020, according to intelligence obtained by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the NSO Group was reported to have sold Pegasus spyware software for hundreds of millions of US dollars to the UAE and other Gulf States, for surveillance of anti-regime activists, journalists and political leaders from rival nations, with Israeli government encouragement and mediation. Later, on December 2020, Al Jazeera investigation show The Tip of the Iceberg, Spy partners, showed exclusive footage about Pegasus and its penetration into the phones of media professionals and activists, used by Israel to eavesdrop on its opponents and even its allies.
In July 2021, widespread media coverage part of the Project Pegasus revelations along with an in-depth analysis by human rights group Amnesty International uncovered that Pegasus was still being widely exploited against high-profile targets. It showed that Pegasus was able to infect all modern iOS versions up to the latest release, iOS 14.6, through a zero-click iMessage exploit.