cybercrime is set to cost the world 10.5 trillion dollars by 2025. this is larger than the entire
GDP of Germany France and the UK combined in 2021 but what if I told you that the world's
most dangerous virus is completely legal and could be running on your phone right now without a trace
introducing Pegasus the world's most dangerous computer virus why is it so dangerous well the
virus Grant almost complete access to your device and to get infected you don't need to click a link
download something by mistake or do well anything Pegasus tracks everything you do with or near your
smartphone and does so undetected a government anywhere in the world could be accessing your
phone learning all of your activities and using that information against you or those around you
simply put Pegasus is a malware program which is a small viral file usually delivered online
a malware file might enable the tracking of how a computer is used and even its immediate
environment but exactly what it does depends on how it was programmed in the case of Pegasus the
access is almost complete it enables hackers to record phone calls track location use the
phone camera to take photos or video read text messages and much more the system then passes
back this data to the person who planted them out where the name comes from Greek mythology a
nod to the winged horse of the same name it was first discovered in 2016 when it was found in a
message to the iPhone of a human rights activist called Ahmed Mansour Mansour forwarded the link
to the citizen lab of the University of Toronto who were able to work out its capabilities at the
time the virus was programmed to exploit three specific unknown security vulnerabilities these
vulnerabilities were found in phone apps and allowed the Pegasus file to infiltrate a phone
without the knowledge of users the Pegasus malware has existed since at least 2013 having taken so
many years to discover and has proven to be very high profile in its use the killing of journalist
Jamal khasogi and the Saudi Arab Arabian Consulate in Abu Dhabi for example resulted
in a lawsuit against the makers of Pegasus by friends of khasogi who alleged it was used by
the Saudi government to spy on them in late 2021 it was proven that Pegasus had been on the phone
of kasoki's wife for several months placed there by a government agency the information gathered
before his death in 2018 may have led to kasogi becoming a Target and the connection is explored
in the Frontline documentary on kosogi produced by PBS many people first heard of Pegasus though
when it was used to hack Amazon boss Jeff Bezos in 2018 the same year kosogi died the Bezos hack
is likely connected to WhatsApp messages exchanged with Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman who bezos's
Washington Post had been critical of the hackers had access to bezos's phone for months as well
as compromising his business privacy the hack also notably led to the destruction of bezos's marriage
this was after leaked texts publicly revealed his affair with reporter Lauren Sanchez the reason
Pegasus is a particularly dangerous example full of this kind of spying is that it is sold
specifically to governments often for millions of dollars made by the Israeli NSO group the purpose
officially is to track and Trace terrorists and their activities however in practice the way
Pegasus is used is suspected to often be quite a lot more underhand since its introduction
Pegasus has gone through several versions each more powerful and capable than the last in its
newest guys if the malware is installed on your device then nearly everything you do involving
or close to your smartphone becomes available to the user Pegasus does this by exploiting security
bugs a type of security related programming error in things like software packages and
operating platforms specifically Pegasus looks for something called zero day vulnerabilities which is
suck issues that are known by some top security Specialists but not yet known by the programmers
who created the software these weaknesses which can be found across all operating systems allow
Pegasus to exploit the system to gain admin rights to a smartphone or other device which
in turn grants extensive access the easiest way for Pegasus malware to arrive on a device is via
a disguised link though there are far more subtle methods too at one stage for example a security
issue meant that simply making a call to a device via FaceTime on the iPhone allowed Pegasus to
install itself that security glitch thankfully has now been fixed but new ones are always being
filmed when a government wants to make use of a program like Pegasus it is nearly impossible to
prevent to the point that some Security Experts simply recommend throwing out a smartphone as
the best solution or of course not carrying a smartphone at certain strategic times to allow
for privacy others suggest removing a camera from the device or other functionality that poses a
clear security risk a more practical if incomplete solution is key keeping a smartphone fully up to
date which helps limit the security gaps that Pegasus can operate through as companies learn
of them remember though that Pegasus often targets security gaps that the program makers are not yet
aware of in its most modern formats Pegasus is incredibly extensive it essentially uses
your phone at the same time as you anonymously pulling in huge amounts of data and supplying
that data back to whoever placed the malware so why should this worry you of course you're most
likely to be at risk if you do something that your government won't like while terrorist tracking is
the official purpose of Pegasus it's quite likely to have been used around the world for things
ranging from tracking protesters to learning about the activities of political opponents
with use highly secretive and likely to be subject to protest in itself if discovered it is hard in
practice to know quite how governments are using the software what is certain though is that it has
been used against some journalists and activists with the not-for-profit Forbidden stories doing a
wide-reaching expose in 2021 they even found that relatively modern States like Hungary
and Poland have abused the software while another investigation uncovered 10 other states using the
malware including India Mexico and Morocco in fact research done by Amnesty International found 50
000 specific targets including 180 journalists from 20 countries they included journalists
with CNN Al Jazeera the financial times and the Wall Street Journal that's likely the tip of the
iceberg after all it would be a bit naive to think the amnesty report caught everything while the
average person might feel their data isn't worth stealing and in comparison to journalists and
politicians perhaps it isn't it's also true that data is now used in everything from advertising
to monitoring Behavior so everyone's data has some value while there is certainly something
to be gained commercially in tracking the average person on the street and due to its very nature
nobody including its makers likely knows quite how widespread Pegasus actually is it is though
thought to still be in the hands of governments alone which is somewhat reassuring when you think
how its wider use could be abused one of the best efforts to work out just how common the
malware is was by the Pegasus project which saw major media organizations from around the world
investigate the malware over 80 journalists from Publications including the Wall Street
Journal the guardian and LaMont spent months working on amnesty International's list of 50
000 phone numbers and trying to establish its accuracy they were able to link many of the
phone numbers concerned to the Pegasus spyware despite this Pegasus makers denied a connection
this is an attempt to build something on a crazy lack of information they said there is something
fundamentally wrong with this investigation they also claim that the list has nothing to
do with us in fact despite pegasus's abuse the NSO group consistently defend the software in
the same way they say that they provide authorized governments with technology that helps them combat
Terror and crime naturally your feelings about pegasus's use might depend on the extent of your
trust of various National governments but the more skeptical experts point out that as well
as the NSO group app producers have a degree of responsibility here they are after all providing
the apps that have security vulnerabilities to so many mobile devices experts feel tech companies
rewards for finding such vulnerabilities are not enough to compete with the black market values
of the same information Apple for example top out their bug Bounty at two hundred thousand dollars
while the black market value of some bugs could be in the millions as it has developed Pegasus
has expanded the amount of information that can be accessed has expanded too and even includes access
to Wi-Fi passwords through a device a version that targets Android phones has been found and dubbed
chrysal after pegasus's brother in the Greek myth the list of countries where the software is used
or has been deployed is ever expanding the FBI are thought to use the software in the US and
it's been found on the phones of several State Department employees at least two EU officials
have been targeted while Israel's refusal to sell the software to Ukraine to assist with
their defense against Russia is widely seen as a sign of Israeli support for Russian leader of
Vladimir Putin naturally you might want to know why such a thing is legal it's legal in most
places only where it is used with permission the software has a genuine practical application it
could be on a government official's phone for the purpose of recording their environment or
meetings for example enabling a simple smartphone to appear normal while being used to protect or
take in information the fact that many uses of the malware are illegal does not make Pegasus
itself illegal in principle the Silver Lining to the story is that Amnesty International has
come up with a way of detecting Pegasus the tool is explained thoroughly on the Amnesty
International website and is definitely worth considering for anyone with serious worries the
tool copies the entire contents of a phone onto a computer and then examines it for signs of Pegasus
some level of computing knowledge is helpful but not necessary at the end of the day Pegasus
is a scary reminder that our private information isn't as private as we might like to think it is