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Russia appears to be targeting journalists with spyware known as Pegasus.
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Pegasus is a “zero-click” software, hacking phones by sending texts that don’t need to be opened.
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The software has targeted dozens of journalists, activists, and politicians in recent years.
Pegasus is an Israeli product, are they selling it to Russia?
Why not? Do you think US donations come with conditions?
Yeah either something else is involved here or Israel is indeed selling Pegasus to literally any government that requests it. Let’s not forget that NSO group is state funded so those deals clearly do have the approval from the Israeli government.
Nothing to worry folks, here’s what NSO said when it was used to target Khashoggi’s inner circle as he was murdered and dismembered in the Saudi consulate:
NSO denies any wrongdoing. It says the software is intended for use against criminals and terrorists and is made available only to military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies from countries with good human rights records
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Thats their loophole: “We evaluated the human rights situation in that country and concluded that it is on par with our own” or something like that.
One of the key reasons for Israel’s reluctance to help Ukraine win the war militarily is simple: It still works closely with Russia.
Russia is important for Israel’s military operations in neighboring Syria, where Israel has been carrying out airstrikes against Iran-backed militias, mainly those of Hezbollah.
Now inform everyone else that other countries are targeting with pegasus
*edit: spelling
They do, and they’ve shared the counter measure (lockdown mode) with the world.
If a nation state will individually target someone, they don’t need to doom scroll on insta (nor do they need to). Locking down the phone to the bare minimum for these kind of people is the appropriate level of response.
How is this a solution? 🤔 and whats the “solution” for android?
I don’t know Android. Sorry. Doesn’t locking down to very very limited hardened features goes against everything Android is (highly flexible customizable for power users who’d want to do that kind of stuff)?
If the feature can be turned on and off by the user then I don’t think it goes against anything right, they’d still have the power?🤔 but locking down everything doesnt seem like a great fix for the average user. Bug fixes should be the real fix
As much as I want to believe this is effective, all it looks to do is turn your phone into… a phone.
If they can get cell records, they can track you.
SMS isn’t end-to-end encrypted, once it leaves your phone to the network it’s fair game. Given that Russia controls Russian Telecom, you can be fairly certain that a phone call and an SMS are monitored.
At that point, you’re left with the old school one-time pad. And I can bet on Russia being Russia, so if they see a one-time pad in use, they’re just going to pick you up and beat you
to deathuntil you talk.Which is why these people don’t use sms or standard calling. They use something like Signal.
Signal is great but if the phone itself is compromised it won’t help much.
Lockdown mode was released as a countermeasure specifically against Pegasus the first time it made the rounds as it disables many ways that are commonly exploited as the initial vector point - mainly attachments, links and previews in texts, as well as certain complex web browsing technologies.
I’ve had Lockdown mode on since it’s been released. I miss having 2FA code autofilled from text messages, and there’s the occasional website that’ll need to be whitelisted as it may display an emoji instead of a custom font… but aside from that, it’s barely an inconvenience.
Your telco is always going to be a weak point in a scenario like this, but better that than your phone because a hostile actor sent you a text message that embedded silent persistent spyware.
What are the comments in here… Lol. Anyone able to give a level-headed take on this article/topic? Cheers
At this rate an iPhone will just be Pegasus all the way down. 76 nation states and their rogue black ops will battle for pegasupremacy.
He who hacks harder wins.
(The above is not based on any fact)
But, seriously… 3 (known) years later and Apple doesn’t have a fix for this?
Almost as if it’s intentionally unpatched
Edit: fanboys are a tough crowd. Gheezus.
It’s not like Pegasus is exploiting a single bug in iOS, there are probably hundreds of different ways Pegasus got onto phones over the years. Known security bugs get patched.
Pegasus isn’t a single piece of software, it’s a big toolkit, constantly updated. It’s a race similar to ads vs. ad blockers.
It’s not a problem exclusive to iOS either. Pegasus works on Android phones as well.
Code has been analyzed from several versions of it.
Edit: the code and analysis report available here:
(Edit: it amazes me how much people will defend/rationalize the most valuable corporation ever known to put more effort into the camera being placed 2mm to the left than an exploit that gets people killed.)
That Apple (especially) can’t mitigate against it is pretty damning.
Regardless what Pegasus is made of, it exploits vulnerabilities. Use a rock, a bat, or hard boiled egg and you can break a cheap window. It’s the window that is insecure. Not the methods used.
A trillion dollar company ought to be able to put up a bit more than plexiglass.
And the mega corps ought to be working together on this. Imagine if it got out into the wild.
Remember spectre?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerability)
I am not a lawyer.
hardware based speculation is hard to patch compared to most exploits that are just bad programming mistakes due to two factors. one being its hardware and its hard to patch out hardware and 2. fixing it would lead to severe drop in performance. A name of a very recent one would be Retbleed.
Yet, if you check your dmesg you’ll find innumerable methods of mitigation against such exploits.
A software patch for hardware issue.
Personally, I’d rather the drop in performance than the Kashoggi treatment.
hence a preference thing, because In real life, when users see a huge performance drop, they complain (e.g Apple throttling old iphones due to aging battery without telling users). It’s why it’s one of the hardest fixes to do. Sometimes patches for speculation doesn’t hurt the end user much (e.g Zenbleed does not affect consumer loads like gaming) then you have situations like Intel’s Downfall, which has sizable AVX2/AVX512 performance penalties.
It was absolutely not just for aging battery. It was also planned obsolescence.
hence why it feels like that, but saying its the same situation again, some people would have prefer it for the phone to randomly shut off at 1-10% battery, and there’s the other camp that would have preferred for it to be throttled to prevent non zero shut down.
Apples mistake was both not telling people about it publicly, and not giving them a choice.
because In real life, when users see a huge performance drop, they complain
Yeah, true, and the dead people don’t get to complain, so just prioritize performance because the dead aren’t complaining.
/s obviously. I don’t give a fuck how much performance you gain/lose by running an exposed system. Increasing road speed limits would help people get to work faster. But more of them would be dead. Road safety comes first, convenience and speed comes second.
I could understand people having a slightly different priority list 30 years ago when performance was shit and computers were obscure. But in this day and age, we’re making increases in performance 99.9% of the populace won’t notice and computers literally run our lives. The priority is security.
then you have situations like Intel’s Downfall, which has sizable AVX2/AVX512 performance penalties.
Yeah, exactly. Most people don’t utilize AVX all that much. And those that do likely have newer machines that are unnaffected. And Intel is patching it.
The point is, anything there is code speculation, virtually every single time they invent a new way to speed up performance, a new method of attack gets found. It doesnt matter if its Arm, it doesnt matter if its Apple, jt doesnt matter if its Intel, doesnt matter if its AMD, everyone has exploits as long as code speculation is a thing. If security is a severe issue, would the solution not be finding or using phones without code speculation period as as long as long as it exists, historyically speaking, its only a matter of time till an exploit exists for it.
One affects games.
The other literally gets people killed.
Theres literally a functioning business model of “find zero-day exploits for software X and sell that info to the highest bidder”. There is actively many huge bounties for currently working exploits that you, random dude on the internet, can get if you can show that an unknown bug can be used to gain access to some software. Pegasus is one of the groups buying the exploits and then using it.
It is a perpetual cat and mouse game. Every time that Apple is made aware of an exploit they patch it asap, but that doesn’t mean they’ve fixed every exploit. You can’t fix a bug unless you know it’s there.
Really? An entire economy based on hacking, exploits, and exfiltration? (Edit: I guess I need this: /s, because, /whoosh)
Again. A 2 TRILLION DOLLAR COMPANY, should be able to find the resources to not only find these exploits, but be able to more vigorously check their own code on their own platform on their own hardware in their own labs.
Doubly since it affects a broad range of hardware/software/firmware, and since these exploits essentially own everything, and it is targeted at high value targets including members of state, journos, advocates and dissenters, it would seem necessary to develop better security in tandem with the other half of the monopoly and OEM’S and national security agencies.
It isn’t just a bug that erases your favorite cat pics. Worst case, these exploits can erase your life if you end up saying/knowing/thinking something someone doesn’t like.
I find it difficult to believe after 3 years, multiple os updates, code changes, hardware/chip redesign, the same exploit(s) have remained so thoroughly effective, and the best a company can do is “lockdown”
You’re already owned by then.
Ye, it’s a real thing. A quick google search for the term “companies that buy software exploits” lead me to the following real companies that will buy exploits you find; zerodium, offensive cyber, and vupen. In fact, zerodium currently has a $400,000 bounty for an exploit for microsoft outlook. It’s very useful for say something like a government to know about these hacks in case say they want to hack someone. For example stuxnet was written by the US to fuck with Iranian centrifuges.
Pegasus isn’t just a single exploit. It uses many and every patch to an OS doesn’t fix every single exploit so there’s always another way Pegasus can break into the system. Also, do you think that with every update to iOS the developers are rewriting their entire code base? I’ve written lots of updates for my software and I almost never scrap the entire thing when I need to do rewrites.
Again, Apple, a 2 TRILLION dollar company, can only fix exploits they know exist.
Again, with 2 trillion dollars, I’d fucking hire every hacker, grey, black, white, and red hat, every security expert, every current and former intelligence agent, consultant, pundit, engineer, 7 year old prodigy, AI, and the corpse of Steve Jobs to fix a problem that essentially makes any and all security features null and void.
But, that’s just me.
I’m not a shareholder grasping at my 96 cent dividend over the safety and lives of people.
And even after spending all that, I’d still have 2 trillion because that is an insane figure that is so big it would pay 10 million people 200k. Surely enough to fix the problem.
Yeah, the argument that there’s money in this business only furthers the point here - there’s money in it because it’s valuable to abuse systems. Therefore the people running those systems should be the ones fucking funding it. And then using that agreement to keep the exploit details behind closed doors until they are able to fix it.
It’s almost like this should be an entire internal department. Maybe it could be named after the idea of keeping things secure?
If the company making massive profits off the sales of these devices isn’t going to fund it, who is? It’s fucking insane to me that Google basically funds the security of iOS for Apple, who’s their direct competition in that market. We probably wouldn’t even know this exists if it wasn’t for stuff like that.
Apple can’t or Apple won’t?
But, seriously… 3 (known) years later and Apple doesn’t have a fix for this?
Almost as if it’s intentionally unpatched
Pegasus constantly adapts, evolves, and changes overtime with how it works. Pegasus 3 years ago isn’t the same as Pegasus today. Once a vulnerability is discovered and fixed, they find a new one to exploit and take advantage of. Its a constant battle.
I’m not a big fan of Apple at all, but credit where its due, they have made a pretty good effort to patch Pegasus vulnerabilities whenever they come about, plus have added features like Lockdown Mode to help protect against it even further, etc. This article is literally about Apple even warning journalists to be cautious of it.
Saying Apple is intentionally allowing Pegasus to happen, like you’re claiming, is honestly laughable with all things considered.
they have made a pretty good effort to patch Pegasus vulnerabilities whenever they come about,
I mean, they kind of have to? What’s the alternative, they leave it? Why are we applauding them for basically the bare minimum here?
Apple’s investment in discovering these problems seems pretty poor. There are multiple instances of Google finding exploits for them and then Apple downplays and complains about Google being too alarmist.
Sure, they fix things. But they fucking better, or there’s a very different problem. But their proactive investments in trying to discover them ahead of time seems pathetic.
I think you missed my point, I’m not applauding Apple for doing the bare minimum, and to be clear, I think you absolutely raise fair points, I’m just pointing out that its ridiculous to claim that Apple intentionally allows Pegasus to happen, which is absurd based off the fact they make efforts to patch its vulnerabilities whenever they pop up, add features like Lockdown Mode, and even warn people who could be impacted. Could they do better to be proactive against exploits? Sure, definitely seems like they have room for improvement, but that’s not the same thing as what the person I replied to had implied by acting like Apple intentionally allowed Pegasus to work and was complicit with it.
Make it preinstalled and put the hackers out of job. Taps forehead
Obviously we need multiple adversarial LLMs battling this out. Humans are not solving this problem.
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Oh look, it’s the Russian shill account.
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Is that their explanation for their radioactive phones? ☢️📱
“Radioactive” implies ionizing radiation. The article you linked refers to electromagnetic radiation. Why are you spreading misinformation?
Ignorance and stupidity.
Lost your chance to use this meme:
What the fuck kind of take is that lol?
Maybe you should read it. You do understand that electromagnetic radiation and ionizing radiation (which is what this symbol means ☢️) are different right? Their phones aren’t radioactive, they emit electromagnetic radiation, similar to how a heater emits thermal radiation, and a speaker emits acoustic radiation.
Nah man I got bit by my radioactive cell phone and now I have powers.
Like having 5G service and receiving text messages to my teeth.
Light is radiation. So is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. What sorts of radiation are you taking about?
Google electromagnetic radiation
Holy hell!
Actual wi-fi
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