Pegasus (spyware)

Pegasus is surveillance software developed by the, which is headquartered , Israel. The CEO of NSO is Shalev Hulio. The name of the software is derived from its functionality as a "trojan horse" that can infect wireless devices over the air.

Description
Pegasus is used by the for domestic surveillance. NSO claims that its software has saved "countless lives", but Pegasus has been found to be spying on officials of the, including , the prime minister of Spain. It was also discovered to have targeted the devices of, the prime minister of France, and the family of journalist before his  in October 2018. Pegasus uses a variety of attacks to exploit vulnerabilities in Android or iOS to gain access to users' devices.

History
In 2019, the secretly purchased Pegasus from NSO Group for domestic surveillance from a facility in. The NSO had also tried to sell Phantom, a newer spyware tool which could hack U.S. phone numbers. However, after a change in administration in 2021, the United States government instead ed the NSO and decided against deploying Phantom in the U.S.

In November 2021, Apple sued the NSO Group for its spyware activities. By December 2021, the group was under such financial distress, that it was considering killing off Pegasus or potentially selling it to "red flag" authoritarian regimes. The, which represented investors in the NSO Group, refused to authorize such a transaction and loaned 10 million to an NSO subsidiary that was developing a. However, the funds were instead used to cover NSO's payroll.

Apple security updates
Apple urges users to update their devices to at least iOS 14.8, iPadOS 14.8, watchOS 7.6.2, macOS 11.6 (Big Sur), or the latest security update for macOS 10.15.7 (Catalina) to address vulnerabilities that had previously been exploited by Pegasus. The free trial version of iMazing can be used to detect the presence of Pegasus spyware on a potentially infected device.