by Dan Moren
Report: Remote iPhone jailbreak in use by state-sponsored hackers
A report by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai at Motherboard says that a remote jailbreak exploit for the iPhone was uncovered after a human rights activist in the UAE was targeted:
NSO’s malware, which the company codenamed Pegasus, is designed to quietly infect an iPhone and be able to steal and intercept all data inside of it, as well as any communication going through it.
“It basically steals all the information on your phone, it intercepts every call, it intercepts every text message, it steals all the emails, the contacts, the FaceTime calls. It also basically backdoors every communications mechanism you have on the phone,” Murray explained. “It steals all the information in the Gmail app, all the Facebook messages, all the Facebook information, your Facebook contacts, everything from Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat, Telegram–you name it.”
This is scary stuff. Motherboard says today’s release of iOS 9.3.5–which you should install post haste–contains patches for the vulnerabilities in question, but it may just be a harbinger: as we spend more time on our phones and put more of our personal details into them, they’re going to be increasingly tantalizing targets for malware created by criminals, hackers, and surveillance organs.