{"id":38829,"date":"2023-12-29T03:10:45","date_gmt":"2023-12-28T21:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=38829"},"modified":"2025-04-23T21:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T15:54:15","slug":"pegasus-infection-found-on-indian-journalists-phones-after-apple-alert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/pegasus-infection-found-on-indian-journalists-phones-after-apple-alert\/","title":{"rendered":"Pegasus infection found on Indian journalists\u2019 phones after Apple alert"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in news?<\/li>\n<li>What is Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)?<\/li>\n<li>What is Pegasus Spyware?<\/li>\n<li>What is zero-click exploit?<\/li>\n<li>News Summary<\/li>\n<li>What does the report say?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Washington Post and Amnesty International report claims that Pegasus spyware targeted journalists in India.\n<ul>\n<li>This includes the founder editor of The Wire and the South Asia editor of the Organised Crime and Corruption Report Project (OCCRP).\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The intrusion was detected in October 2023 after Apple warned users, including MPs, of potential \u2018state-sponsored attacks\u2019 on their iPhones.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What is Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project is a global network of investigative journalists with staff on six continents.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Founded in 2006, it specializes in organized crime and corruption.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It publishes its stories through local media and in English and Russian through its website.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Recent works<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The entity was involved in the coverage of <strong>Pegasus spyware<\/strong> as well as <strong>Panama Papers leak<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The OCCRP conducted research and published a report on the Adani Group (AG).\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What is Pegasus Spyware?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Pegasus is a malware\/spyware developed by Israel\u2019s NSO Group.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The spyware suite is designed to access any smartphone through zero-click vulnerabilities remotely.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Once a phone is infiltrated, the spyware can access entire data on that particular phone.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It also has real-time access to emails, texts, phone calls, as well as the camera and sound recording capabilities of the smartphone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Working of Pegasus Spyware\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiram-prod.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com\/working_of_Pegasus_spyware_ef1adc406d.webp\" alt=\"working of Pegasus-spyware\" \/><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is zero-click exploit?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>A zero-click exploit refers to malicious installed on a device without the device owner\u2019s consent.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>More importantly, it does not require the device owner to perform any actions to initiate or complete the installation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Specific exploit used in the present case involving Indian journalists<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The specific exploit allegedly in use on the two devices is called <strong>BLASTPAST<\/strong> (previously identified as BLASTPASS).\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It plays out in two phases.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>In the first, the attack attempts to establish a link with the Apple HomeKit &#8211; which gives users a way to control multiple smart devices &#8211; on the target\u2019s device.\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li>The purpose of the first phase could be to determine how the device can be exploited or to keep it in sight for further exploitation in the future.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In the second, some malicious content is sent via the iMessage app to the target.\n<ul>\n<li>This phase is the one that delivers the full spyware payload.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A new forensic investigation by Amnesty International and The Washington Post has shown the use of the Israeli Pegasus spyware to surveil high-profile Indian journalists.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What does the report say?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Background<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The journalists had received an alert from Apple that they were being targeted by <strong>state-sponsored hacking<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Following which, these journalists provided their phones to Amnesty International\u2019s Security Lab for testing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Report<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>At the end of their examination, they reported finding traces of Pegasus\u2019s activity on their respective devices.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Security Lab concluded that a message to facilitate a zero-click exploit had been sent to these phones over his iPhone\u2019s iMessage app.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is Blastpass?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Blastpass is a zero-click exploit chain that can compromise iPhones running iOS 16.6 and iPads running iPadOS 16.6. The exploit involves sending malicious images to the victim&#8217;s iMessage account.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is Amnesty International?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong><u>Source:\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/pegasus-infection-found-on-indian-journalists-phones-after-apple-alert-amnesty-international\/article67682427.ece#:~:text=The%20Wire%20news%20website&#039;s%20founder,devices%2C%20it%20announced%20on%20Thursday.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Pegasus infection found on Indian journalists\u2019 phones after Apple alert: Amnesty International<\/u><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2023\/12\/28\/indian-journalists-targeted-by-israeli-spyware-again-what-do-we-know\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Aljazeera<\/u><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/project-pegasus-india-spyware-controversy-quixplained-7412960\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Indian Express<\/u><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pegasus is a malware\/spyware developed by Israel\u2019s NSO Group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":38830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}