Schneier on Security

DECEMBER 13, 2021

Its Pegasus spyware was used against nine US State Department employees. We don’t know which NSO Group customer trained the spyware on the US. NSO Group’s descent into Internet pariah status continues. ” .

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Schneier on Security

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

Last month, we were warned not to install Qatar’s World Cup app because it was spyware. But it risks giving the Egyptian government permission to read users’ emails and messages. This month, it’s Egypt’s COP27 Summit app : The app is being promoted as a tool to help attendees navigate the event.

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Security Affairs

DECEMBER 16, 2024

Researchers warn of previously undetected surveillance spyware, named NoviSpy, that was found infecting a Serbian journalist’s phone. The spyware’s deployment relied on Cellebrite’s unlocking process, combining two invasive technologies to compromise the journalists digital privacy comprehensively.

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SecureWorld News

MAY 13, 2025

million judgment against NSO Group, the Israeli company behind the Pegasus spyware. company has successfully held a commercial spyware vendor accountable in a court of law, Reuters reports. Targets included h uman rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, diplomats, and government officials. This is more than a courtroom win.

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Security Affairs

DECEMBER 7, 2024

Russia’s FSB used spyware against a Russian programmer after detaining him for allegedly donating to Ukraine earlier this year. The Federal Security Service (FSB) used spyware to monitor a Russian programmer, Kirill Parubets, after he was detained earlier this year for allegedly donating to Ukraine. ” continues the report.

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Schneier on Security

OCTOBER 7, 2022

The Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis was spied on by his own government, with a commercial spyware product called “Predator.” The world would be a much safer place if that government stopped this cyberweapons arms trade from inside its borders. Koukakis is suing Intellexa. Why does it always seem to be Israel?

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Schneier on Security

MARCH 21, 2023

The New York Times is reporting that a US citizen’s phone was hacked by the Predator spyware. The simultaneous tapping of the target’s phone by the national intelligence service and the way she was hacked indicate that the spy service and whoever implanted the spyware, known as Predator, were working hand in hand.

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Security Affairs

MARCH 19, 2025

WhatsApp fixed a zero-click, zero-day vulnerability used to install Paragon’s Graphite spyware on the devices of targeted individuals. WhatsApp has addressed a zero-click, zero-day vulnerability exploited to install Paragon’s Graphite spyware on the devices of targeted individuals.

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Malwarebytes

MAY 8, 2025

Meta has won almost $170m in damages from Israel-based NSO Group, maker of the Pegasus spyware. According to the original complaint against NSO Group, filed in October 2019, the spyware vendor used WhatsApp servers to send malware to around 1400 mobile phones. NSO Group is no stranger to controversy. Facebook has its own initiative.

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Security Affairs

JUNE 12, 2025

Security researchers at Citizen Lab revealed that Paragon’s Graphite spyware can hack fully updated iPhones via zero-click attacks. Citizen Lab has confirmed that Paragon’s Graphite spyware was used to hack fully updated iPhones, targeting at least two journalists in Europe. Both cases were linked to the same attacker.

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Adam Levin

MAY 15, 2019

WhatsApp disclosed a major security vulnerability that allowed hackers to remotely install spyware on mobile devices. The spyware deployed has been traced back to NSO Group, an Israeli cyber company alleged to have enabled Middle East governments to surveil its citizens. NSO Group has denied involvement.

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Security Affairs

JUNE 24, 2025

House has banned WhatsApp on government devices due to data security concerns. In March 2025, WhatsApp addressed a zero-click, zero-day vulnerability exploited to install Paragon’s Graphite spyware on the devices of targeted individuals. Similar restrictions apply to AI tools like ChatGPT , ByteDance apps, and Microsoft Copilot.

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Schneier on Security

MAY 24, 2024

New paper: “ Zero Progress on Zero Days: How the Last Ten Years Created the Modern Spyware Market “: Abstract: Spyware makes surveillance simple. The last ten years have also been marked by stark failures to control spyware and its precursors and components.

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Schneier on Security

AUGUST 5, 2019

Spyware companies like NSO Group have relied on rubber stamp approvals by government agencies whose permission is required to export their technologies abroad.

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Schneier on Security

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

Piling more on NSO Group’s legal troubles, Apple is suing it : The complaint provides new information on how NSO Group infected victims’ devices with its Pegasus spyware. NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware is favored by totalitarian governments around the world, who use it to hack Apple phones and computers.

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Security Affairs

MARCH 13, 2025

North Korea-linked APT group ScarCruft used a new Android spyware dubbed KoSpy to target Korean and English-speaking users. Cyber attacks conducted by the APT37 group mainly targeted government, defense, military,and media organizations in South Korea. Kaspersky first documented the operations of the group in 2016.

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Malwarebytes

MARCH 20, 2025

Experts are again warning about the proliferating market for targeted spyware and espionage. Before we dive into the world of targeted spyware, it’s worth looking at a few of the main players that are active in and against this industry. The name of Paragons spyware is Graphite.

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Security Affairs

JULY 19, 2021

Pegasus Project investigation into the leak of 50,000 phone numbers of potential surveillance targets revealed the abuse of NSO Group’s spyware. Pegasus Project is the name of a large-scale investigation into the leak of 50,000 phone numbers of potential surveillance targets that revealed the abuse of NSO Group’s spyware.

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Security Boulevard

APRIL 8, 2025

Twenty-one countries signed onto the Pall Mall Process, an effort a year in the making that was created to develop a framework nations could adopt to address the proliferation and malicious use of spyware by governments that want it to track human rights workers, activists, journalists, and other such targets.

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Schneier on Security

SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

Citizen Lab is reporting on two zero-click iMessage exploits, in spyware sold by the cyberweapons arms manufacturer NSO Group to the Bahraini government. These are particularly scary exploits, since they don’t require to victim to do anything, like click on a link or open a file. More on this here.

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Security Affairs

APRIL 8, 2025

In March 2025, WhatsApp addressed a zero-click, zero-day vulnerability exploited to install Paragons Graphite spyware on the devices of targeted individuals. WhatsApp blocked a spyware campaign by Paragon targeting journalists and civil society members after reports of the Citizen Lab group from the University of Toronto.

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Malwarebytes

APRIL 21, 2022

” John Scott-Railton recalled after finding out on July 7, 2020 that Pegasus, the highly sophisticated flagship spyware of Israel’s NSO Group, was used to infect a phone linked to the network at 10 Downing Street, the UK Prime Minister’s home and office. “When we found the No. 10 case, my jaw dropped.” Hello, Maestro?

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The Hacker News

MARCH 20, 2025

The governments of Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Israel, and Singapore are likely customers of spyware developed by Israeli company Paragon Solutions, according to a new report from The Citizen Lab.

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Schneier on Security

JANUARY 22, 2018

Moreover, as we dived deeper into the investigation, we discovered several spyware tools for Windows that form an implant for exfiltrating sensitive data on a targeted machine. The malware may be filling a void left after the epic hack in 2015 of Hacking Team , another Italy-based developer of spyware. BoingBoing post.

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Schneier on Security

NOVEMBER 10, 2022

The company’s Panamanian registration records show that it has the identical slate of officers, agents and partners as a spyware maker identified this year as an affiliate of Arizona-based Packet Forensics, which public contracting records and company documents show has sold communication interception services to U.S.

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Penetration Testing

SEPTEMBER 8, 2024

Recently, cybersecurity researchers from Insikt Group have identified a resurgence of Predator spyware infrastructure, previously believed to be largely inactive due to public exposure and U.S. government sanctions.

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Security Boulevard

DECEMBER 12, 2021

State Department employees were hacked with spyware from the infamous NSO Group, and details on a bizarre story about a mother and daughter that face 16 years in prison for […]. The post Life360 Selling Location Data, NSO Group Spyware Hacks Government Employees, Homecoming Queen Contest Hacked appeared first on The Shared Security Show.

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The Hacker News

MAY 2, 2023

A new Android surveillanceware possibly used by the Iranian government has been used to spy on over 300 individuals belonging to minority groups. The spyware The malware, dubbed BouldSpy, has been attributed with moderate confidence to the Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FARAJA).

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The Hacker News

JULY 16, 2021

The spyware vendor was also formally identified as the commercial surveillance company that Google's

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Graham Cluley

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

CISA, the United States's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has ordered federal agencies to patch their iPhones against vulnerabilities that can be used as part of a zero-click attack to install spyware from the notorious NSO Group. Read more in my article on the Tripwire State of Security blog.

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Security Affairs

NOVEMBER 16, 2024

” NSO Group continued using WhatsApp exploits, including spyware called “Erised,” even after being sued for violating anti-hacking laws. In May 2019, Facebook patched a critical zero-day vulnerability in WhatsApp, tracked as CVE-2019-3568 , that has been exploited to remotely install spyware on phones by calling the targeted device.

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Malwarebytes

MARCH 7, 2024

The US Treasury Department has sanctioned Predator spyware vendor Intellexa Consortium, and banned the company from doing business in the US. Intellexa is based in Greece but the Treasury Department imposed the sanctions because of the use of the spyware against Americans, including US government officials, journalists, and policy experts.

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CyberSecurity Insiders

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

NSO Group that is struck in a legal controversy for producing Pegasus Spyware has received a ban from United States and has been added to the US Trade Blacklist. So, from now on the company cannot buy any goods, services or licenses from the American companies and cannot sell its spyware on the American soil.

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Malwarebytes

FEBRUARY 3, 2025

WhatsApp has accused the professional spyware company Paragon of spying on a select group of users. WhatsApp, the Meta-owned, end-to-end encrypted messaging platform, said it has reliable information that nearly 100 journalists and other members of civil society were targets of a spyware campaign conducted by the Israeli spyware company.

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Malwarebytes

MAY 24, 2022

The name of the surveillance company—or better said, professional spyware vendor—is Cytrox and the name of its spyware is Predator. In the campaign uncovered by TAG, the spyware vendor used the zero-days in conjunction with other already-patched vulnerabilities. Government spyware. Did I hear someone say Pegasus ?

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Security Affairs

SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

The iPhone of a prominent Russian journalist, who is at odds with Moscow, was infected with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The iPhone of the Russian journalist Galina Timchenko was compromised with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The threat actors used a zero-click exploit, likely the PWNYOURHOME. .”

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CyberSecurity Insiders

JULY 22, 2021

Chine Foreign Ministry has issued a public statement condemning the distribution and usage of Pegasus Spyware surveillance software by various countries. Now, to those uninitiated, Israel-based NSO Group developed Pegasus surveillance software that was meant for government organizations to spy on criminal suspects.

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