Pegasus: The ‘Ultimate Spyware’ for iOS and Android

Apple iPhone and iPad users usually believe they are safe as iOS has additional encryption and data protection to safeguard user data but that is not the case

Apple iPhone and iPad users usually believe they are safe as iOS has additional encryption and data protection features to safeguard user data, even in cases where other parts of the security infrastructure have been compromised. There’s no malware for iOS, they say. Apple does little to discourage the impression — the “fruit company” doesn’t even allow antivirus solutions in its App Store, because, you know, allegedly they’re not needed.

The keyword here is ‘allegedly’. There actually is a malware in the wild that targets iOS users — it’s been proved a number of times, and in August 2016 researchers proved it again by revealing the existence of Pegasus, a spyware capable of hacking any iPad or iPhone, harvesting data about the victim, and establishing surveillance on them. That discovery made the whole cybersecurity world very uneasy. At the Kaspersky | Lab’s Security Analyst Summit, researchers from Lookout revealed that Pegasus exists not only for iOS, but for Android as well. The Android version is different in some ways from its iOS predecessor.

Pegasus: The beginning Pegasus was discovered thanks to Mr. Ahmed Mansoor, a UAE human rights activist, who happened to be one of its targets. It was a spear-phishing attack: He received several SMS messages that contained what he thought were malicious links, so he sent those messages to security experts from Citizen Lab, and they brought another cybersecurity firm, Lookout, to the investigation. Mansoor was right. If he had clicked, his iPhone would have been infected with malware — malware for iOS. For nonjailbroken iOS to be precise. The malware was dubbed Pegasus, and Lookout researchers called it the most sophisticated attack they’d ever seen on any endpoint.

Pegasus has been attributed to the NSO Group, an Israeli company whose bread and butter is developing spyware. That means the malware is commercial — it’s sold to whoever is willing to pay for it. Pegasus relied on a whopping three zero-day (previously unknown) vulnerabilities in iOS that allowed it to silently jailbreak the device and install surveillance software. It is modular malware. After scanning the target’s device, it installs the necessary modules to read the user’s messages and mail, listen to calls, capture screenshots, log pressed keys, exfiltrate browser history, contacts, and so on and so forth. Basically, it can spy on every aspect and second of the target’s life.

It’s also noteworthy that Pegasus could even listen to encrypted audio streams and read encrypted messages — thanks to its keylogging and audio recording capabilities, it was stealing messages before they were encrypted. Another interesting fact about Pegasus is that it tries to hide itself really diligently. The malware then self-destructs if it is not able to communicate with its command-and-control (C&C) server for more than 60 days, or if the malware detects that it was installed on the wrong device with the wrong SIM card on.

The Android version is very similar to its iOS sister in terms of its capabilities, but different in terms of the techniques it uses to penetrate the device. Pegasus for Android does not rely on zero-day vulnerabilities. Instead it uses a wellknown rooting method called Framaroot. Another difference: If iOS version fails to jailbreak the device, the whole attack fails, but the same is not the case with the Android version.

“When news of the iOS version of Pegasus got out, Apple was quick to react. The company issued an iOS security update (9.3.5) that patched all three of the aforementioned vulnerabilities. Google, which helped investigate the case with the Android version, took another path and notified potential Pegasus targets directly. If you’ve updated your iOS gadgets to the latest software version and haven’t received a warning message from Google, this means you are probably safe and not under surveillance by Pegasus,” stated Mr. Altaf Halde, Managing Director of Kaspersky Lab (South Asia).

However, that doesn’t mean that there is no other spyware around for iOS and Android. And the existence of Pegasus proved that iOS malware goes beyond badly coded adware and ransom-demanding websites. There are some serious threats in the wild though. Follow to given tips to stay safe:

1. Update your devices on time, without fail, and pay special attention to security updates.

2. Install a good security solution on each of your devices. There are none for iOS, but we hope that Pegasus will make Apple rethink its policy.

3. Don’t fall for phishing, even if it’s targeted spear phishing like in the case with Ahmed Mansoor. If you receive a link from an unknown source, don’t click on it automatically.