Quixplained: Understanding Pegasus, the spyware developed by Israel’s NSO Group

A global collaborative investigative project has discovered Israeli spyware Pegasus was used to target thousands of people across the world. In India, at least 300 people are believed to have been targetted, including two serving Ministers in the Narendra Modi government, three Opposition leaders, one constitutional authority, several journalists and business persons.

What exactly is Pegasus, and how does it infect a device? And, what happens after it gains control of a device? Take a look:

What is Pegasus? How does Pegasus work? How does Pegasus infect a device? What happens after Pegasus infects your device?

A worrying aspect that has been revealed is the ability of the spyware to infect a device by a ‘zero-click’ attack, which does not require any action from the phone’s user. This is an upgrade from earlier spear-phishing methods using text links or messages.

Also in Explained | The making of Pegasus, from startup to spy-tech leader

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