NSO demonstrated its mobile-phone hacks on BlackBerry, iPhone, and Android phones in 2013, according to leaked emails from a breach of Hacking Team, a competitor of the company based in Italy, published on WikiLeaks.
“Your smartphone today is the new walkie-talkie,” Lavie told the Financial Times that year. “Most of your typical solutions for interception are inadequate, so a new tool had to be built.”
Pegasus can infect a targeted phone in two ways, through SMS text messaging. Its “zero-click” vector allows an attacker to send a special SMS message to a target that causes the phone to automatically load a malicious link, while its “one-click” vector requires a user to click a link to infect their device, which happens in the background without a user ever knowing.
Once the device is infected, spies can actively record with its microphone or video camera, grab personal data like calendars, contacts, and passwords, or download all the data on the device, to include emails, photos, and browsing history.
“We’re a complete ghost,” Lavie told Defense News in 2013. “We’re totally transparent to the target, and we leave no traces.”
Source Article from https://www.businessinsider.com/whatsapp-hack-who-is-nso-group-spy-firm-behind-attack-2019-5
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