Pegasus Project: What is Pegasus spyware made by Israeli company NSO?

The French media organization "Forbidden Stories" and the international human rights organization "Amnesty International" have gained access to a list of more than 50,000 phone numbers from countries that use the Israeli spyware company NSO's software Pegasus. 

Together with 17 different news organizations around the world, Amnesty and Forbidden Stories launched a study called "The Pegasus Project", in which they shared the list with about 80 journalists and analyzed the numbers to find out. Find out who's the phone has been compromised by this spy and surveillance software.
The study found that the list includes the phones of more than a thousand government officials, journalists, businessmen, human rights activists, lawyers, and many others around the world. The list also includes an old mobile number of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The mobile devices of 67 of them were obtained by Amnesty International for analysis, of which 37 were phones that were traced to the Pegasus attack.

What is Pegasus Spyware?

Pegasus maker NSO says its software is designed to be used against terrorists and criminal elements, and that the company only sells the software to countries that are good at human rights. 

How does Pegasus work?

Pegasus installs itself on the victim's phone at the click of a link sent via email or message, giving the spy full access to the victim's phone.

This includes all data on the phone's hard drive, such as photos and videos, emails, calendars, messaging apps, and more.

In addition, this software can listen to and record conversations on or near the phone using the phone's camera, mic, etc.

According to a recent report by Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories, the latest version of Pegasus can install itself on the target phone without any link or download of any content.

Experts call this capability 'Zero Click Vulnerability', meaning it can be inserted into a phone without clicking a link or sending a message, and this feature makes it more lethal than other spy software.