Digital Supervisory Group Finds Israel's NSO Spyware That Takes Advantage Of New Vulnerabilities On Apple Devices

JAKARTA - Researchers at the Citizen Lab digital watchdog group announced on Thursday 7 September that they discovered spyware they connected with Israeli company NSO Group, which leverages new vulnerabilities on Apple devices.

While examining Apple devices of an employee of a Washington-based civil society group last week, Citizen Lab said it found that the vulnerability had been used to infect devices with NSO's Pegasus spyware, as stated in a statement.

"This shows that civil society is once again functioning as an early warning system for very sophisticated attacks," said John Scott-Railton, senior researcher at Citizen Lab, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto.

Citizen Lab did not provide further details about the affected individuals or organizations involved.

"This vulnerability allows compromise on the iPhone running the latest version of iOS (16.6) without any interaction from the victim," the digital watchdog group said.

Apple issued a new update on its device after investigating the vulnerabilities reported by Citizen Lab. An Apple spokesperson said there were no further comments, while Citizen Lab encouraged consumers to update their devices.

Spokesperson for NSO said they could not comment directly on the Citizen Lab research.

The Israeli company has been blacklisted by the United States government since 2021 on charges of abuse, including reconnaissance of government officials and journalists.