Pegasus Spyware | How Pegasus hacks your phone? | Israel NSO | SOHAIL KHAN

 Come, let's talk about the Pegasus Scandal. This alleged scam is so dangerous and outrageous, a scam of this level has never been seen before anywhere in the world. Most people cannot understand the impact it has on the world. France's President, Macron, changed his phone ever since his name was on this list. Investigations have begun in many countries across the globe. By various investigative agencies. But in Pakistan, our Pakistani  media is doing its best to dress it up as an 'International Plot' and then assure the people that it's insignificant and sweep the story under the rug. Come, let's find out what happened.

First, What does the word 'Pegasus' mean? This word is from Greek mythology, friends. A mythological white horse with wings. It was called Pegasus. It looked somewhat like this. But today, in our modern world, Pegasus is spyware.  Spyware is dangerous software viruses that secretly get into your computer or smartphone. And give your data to other people. They can access your camera.c They may even record your video through the device's camera. Or any other data like your WhatsApp chats or photos. They can extract all to give them to someone else. Spying on you is what this spyware does. So the next question is How do spyware like Pegasus enter your phone? Earlier, you would've gotten a link through SMS or on WhatsApp. Once you'd click on the link, your phone could've been infected. But today, they've improved their technology so much that you don't even have to click on the link.They'll send you a WhatsApp message or leave a missed call on your number. Even if you don't receive the call, the Pegasus spyware can still infect your phone. And that's why it's so dangerous and shocking. They just need to know the phone number. It can attack both Android and iOS devices. And once it has infected the phone, it can do virtually anything. Reading your WhatsApp chats and SMSs. Recording your calls. Monitoring the numbers you've called. Accessing your photos. Getting your location by tracking your GPS. Secretly turning on your phone's camera. Or your phone's microphone. To record you secretly. All your contact details and passwords it can access everything. The Pegasus spyware is developed by an Israeli company. The NSO Group.

The full form of NSO is this.

The names of the three founders of this company. The biggest question on your mind may be that Why was such spyware created? What was the need for it? NSO claims that they created Pegasus so that Government Intelligence and Law Enforcement agencies can use this. To fight against crime and terrorism. For example, the Mexican government has said that they used the Pegasus spyware to capture the Mexican drug lord El Chappo. You'd praise spyware. That is brilliant spyware. It can be used to round up all the terrorists and criminals of the world. That the entire world would become a better place because of this spyware. This spyware would seem like the white horse that has come from the heavens to purge the world of crime and terrorism. But here comes the twist in the story now. Allegedly, this recent leak also included the name of a Mexican journalist. The Mexican government has allegedly spied on a Mexican journalist using this spyware. That Mexican journalist had exposed several corruption scams in Mexico. Later, this Mexican journalist was murdered. Apart from this, do you remember the case, friends, where a Washington Post journalist, Jamal was murdered allegedly by the Saudi Arabian government? In that case, too, it's now revealed that Pegasus spyware was installed a few days before the murder. On the phone of the journalist's wife. Additionally, NSO is also named when allegedly, the Saudi Arabian Prince had hacked the phone of Amazon chief, Jeff Bezos.

This is also in the reports. If we talk about the current exposé, friends, it has been revealed by a France-based NGO, Forbidden Stories. They had technical support from the Amnesty International team. They have revealed a 'leaked list' with more than 50,000 phone numbers. And they claim that the phone numbers belong to the people who have already been spied on using Pegasus or are the potential targets of being spied on in the future. More than 80 journalists. 17 distinct media organizations. Present in 10 different countries. All of them have collaborated in the latest exposé. These include some major media houses like Reuters, Guardian, Washington Post Süddeutsche Zeitung from Germany. Le Monde from France. Haaretz from Israel. Proceso from Mexico. Direkt36 from Hungary. Amnesty International has publically revealed the methodology of this project. If you have the technical knowledge in this field, then you can check it out, the link will be in the description below. This methodology was also independently reviewed. By The Citizen Lab, based in Canada. And they found that the methodology used to find out the Pegasus infections was correct. Forbidden Stories and its media partners have identified NSO clients in 11 countries. And I'd like to show you the list of the countries. Next to the names of these countries, I've put their ranks on the Democracy Index in brackets. Don't miss them.

Of these 50,000 phone numbers in the list, 1,000 have already been identified. And their phones have been sent for forensic examination. Not all of them agreed to get it done. Some people agreed to send their phones for forensic examination. There it's tested to see if there are any traces of the Pegasus software on the phones. To be protected from such Pegasus level hacking to do something at an individual level is next to impossible. The only thing you can do is don't share your phone number with people other than your very close friends or family members. Which is practically not possible for anyone to practice. But in day-to-day lives, against most of the attacks on your privacy, you can be protected by using a VPN. VPN helps to hide your location.And one of the best VPN apps, in my opinion, is NordVPN.