Apple, the company that makes the iPhone mobile phone, has offered its users an emergency update of its
software
to correct a vulnerability in its system, which according to researchers could be used by hackers to directly intervene the phones and other devices of this Mark.
Researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab said in a statement Monday that the security problem had been exploited by hackers from the
NSO Group,
an Israeli cybersecurity company, to
hack into
the iPhone of a Saudi activist.
The flaw affected all of Apple's operating systems
, according to the researchers, including its phones, tablets and computers.
[The IPhone 13 could work without network service | Mr. Tech]
Unlike other hacking tools, the vulnerability in the system exploited by this group allowed them to infect the Saudi activist's phone without the user having to do anything, such as clicking on a link or downloading a file.
"It is absolutely chilling,"
said John Scott-Railton, one of the main researchers at Citizen Lab, who published a report on the matter this Monday, after alerting the company to the failure.
An Apple store employee in New York, on February 5, 2020.AP / Mark Lennihan
In addition, the expert warned that it is very unlikely that victims will realize that their devices have been the target of a cyberattack.
"The user sees crickets while their iPhone is being quietly exploited," Scott-Railton said.
"Someone sends you a GIF that isn't, and then you're in trouble. That's it. You don't see anything," he
specified.
NSO Group is a computer company that creates security and hacking software that it rents to governments to spy on computers and phones.
The company has insisted that its main product, the Pegasus software, is a vital tool to fight terrorist cells and criminal groups, which it rents to governments to use in accordance with their own laws.
It has also ensured that it is not used against US citizens and that it revokes the license of countries that misuse its products.
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But Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity research center at the University of Toronto, has found multiple instances where Pegasus has been used against journalists in Mexico and against political dissidents in Saudi Arabia, including associates of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
A spokesperson for the NSO Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment from our sister network NBC News.
Apple also did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News, but the company noted in the notes that accompanied its software update that the vulnerability
"may have been actively exploited"
by NSO.
Scott-Railton is confident that the new iOS and Mac OS operating system update will prevent users from being compromised in this way.
“
This will prevent this vulnerability from being exploited to infect users
.
But we know that NSO is always trying to find other ways to tap the phones and they may turn to something else, "said the expert.
With information from NBC News and The Associated Press.
