What is Pegasus? How to check if your phone is infected with Pegasus spyware?

Good day! In this article, we will talk about what is Pegasus and how to check if your phone is infected with this spyware.

What is Pegasus?

For a year now, news about the Pegasus spyware has been spreading all over the Internet. This malicious utility was developed by the well-known Israeli hacking firm NSO Group for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to covertly spy on people from different countries.

A report by information security experts shows that as of July 23, 2021, 50,000 phones and devices have been infected with Pegasus spyware. This number doesn’t seem like much in relation to the entire population of the Earth, but the malware itself is dangerous. She gets full access to the phone system and reads data such as photos, images, listens to conversations, reads correspondence and much more.

This discovery made most Android and IOS users think about how to check for this spyware on their phone. Unfortunately, most antivirus programs cannot detect this malware because it exploits zero-day vulnerabilities that are unknown to developers and hardware manufacturers. Luckily, Amnesty International has developed a Mobile Verification Toolkit (MVT) with which you can check your device for the Pegasus malware. Its source code is available at GitHub.