by Christopher Bing and Zeba Siddiqui
(Portal) – Researchers at digital surveillance group Citizen Lab said on Thursday they had found spyware linked to Israeli company NSO that exploited a recently discovered flaw in Apple AAPL.O devices.
While inspecting an employee of a Washington-based civil society group’s Apple device last week, Citizen Lab said (link) that the discovered flaw was used to infect the device with NSO’s Pegasus spyware, the group said in a statement.
“This shows that civil society is once again acting as an early warning system for really sophisticated attacks,” said John Scott-Railton, senior fellow at Citizen Lab, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs and the Public University of Toronto Policy.
Citizen Lab did not provide any further information about the person or organization affected.
The flaw allowed iPhones running the latest version of iOS (16.6) to be compromised without any interaction from the victim, the digital watchdog said.
Apple has released new updates for its devices after investigating the flaws reported by Citizen Lab. An Apple spokesperson said there was no further comment, while Citizen Lab urged consumers to update their devices.
An NSO spokesman said he had no immediate comment on Citizen Lab’s research.
The Israeli company has been on the US government’s blacklist (link) since 2021 for alleged abuses, including surveillance of officials and journalists.