The hacker could then read texts and emails, and track calls and contacts.
Advertisement
You can do this by going into the Settings menu on your Apple device, tapping “General”, tapping “Software Update”, and if there is an update available, tapping “Download and Install”.
The exploit was first discovered by human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor who worked with The Citizen Lab to bring the issue to light.
In response to a series of zero-day vulnerabilities, Apple yesterday released an update to the latest version of iOS 9.
This threat, named “Trident” by security firm Lookout and internet watchdog Citizen Lab, can reportedly turn any iPhone into an espionage tool by installing sophisticated spyware. No stranger to hacking attempts, the well-known dissident forwarded the messages to a researcher at Citizen Lab in the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs.
The messages promised to reveal secrets about people allegedly being tortured in the United Arab Emirates’ jails if he tapped the links.
He said: “I noticed the messages immediately and basically those two messages pushed all the red alarms to me because I have been targeted several times with several spywares”.
As for NSO Group, the organization is staying mostly mum on their actions.
“Once infected, Mansoor’s phone would have become a digital spy in his pocket, capable of employing his iPhone’s camera and microphone to snoop on activity in the vicinity of the device”, Citizen Lab and Lookout said.
NSO Group denied any knowledge of this specific hack.
Apple Inc. issued a fix for the vulnerabilities Thursday, just ahead of the reports’ release, working at a blistering pace for which the Cupertino, California-based company was widely praised.
It said that it was being used to attack high-value targets.
Advertisement
He offered a statement that said the company’s mission was “to help make the world a safer place” and that it sold only to authorized government agencies to help them “combat terror and crime”.
