Apples high security mode blocked NSO spyware, researchers say

News Summary

  • For years, researchers at Citizen Lab, Amnesty International and other organizations have documented several cases where NSO customers used the company’s spyware to target journalists, human rights defenders and opposition politicians.Citizen Lab’s new findings show that NSO is still alive and well, despite a rocky past couple of years.
  • This is the first documented case where Lockdown Mode has successfully protected someone from a targeted attack.In the recent cases, Citizen Lab researchers said that the targets’ iPhones blocked the hacking attempts and showed a notification saying Lockdown Mode prevented someone from accessing the phone’s Home app.
  • And the last exploit, deployed starting in October 2022 exploited the iPhone’s HomeKit and iMessage functionalities.In its report, Citizen Lab said the two Mexicans targeted by the exploits investigate human rights violations allegedly carried out by the Mexican military.
  • Last year, Apple launched a new feature for iPhone users who are worried about getting targeted with sophisticated spyware, such as journalists or human rights defenders.
  • The second exploit deployed starting in June 2022 and is a “two-step” exploit, meaning it targets two features, in this case the FindMy feature and iMessage.
  • The Mexican government is a known spyware customer.Citizen Lab reported all these exploits to Apple, which have since then pushed updates and reduced the attack surface.
Last year, Apple launched a new feature for iPhone users who are worried about getting targeted with sophisticated spyware, such as journalists or human rights defenders. Now, researchers say they ha [+5279 chars]