A forensic analysis by Amnesty International found a type of military-grade spyware

Spyware successfully broke into journalists' iPhones by sending iMessages that didn't even need to be read

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2021-07-19 17:00:05

A forensic analysis by Amnesty International found a type of military-grade spyware was used to successfully break into journalists' iPhones, apparently by sending iMessages that didn't even need to be clicked.

The spyware is made by Israeli company NSO Group, a private firm that sells advanced hacking tools to clients including governments.

A group of 17 media outlets and Amnesty International published a report Sunday claiming NSO Group's Pegasus software was used by its clients to hack the phones of at least 37 journalists, activists, politicians, and business executives around the world.

Amnesty International published a forensic methodology report of how it analyzed targets' phones to discover whether they had been compromised by Pegasus.

The organization found evidence of "zero-click" iMessage attacks being targeted at journalists going back to 2018, with alarming implications for iPhone security. Zero-click attacks don't require any interaction from the victim to break into a phone.