iPhone users around the world received a strange message. “You are under attack”

The Redmond-based company did not provide detailed information about the attack. We know that the notification was sent to users from 92 countries, but there is no indication that Poland is also on this list.

Apple has detected that you are the target of a spyware attack that is trying to remotely crack the iPhone associated with your Apple ID

– says the warning sent by Apple. “This attack is likely targeting you because of who you are or what you do. While it is never possible to be absolutely certain that such an attack has actually occurred, Apple believes that such a threat is real, so please take the warning seriously “- we read further.

It is worth noting here that this is not the first warning of this kind sent by Apple. Moreover – as the brand informs – since 2021, the company has sent notifications about a potential attack to users from 150 countries. As TechCrunch reminds, in October last year, Apple sent an identical warning to many journalists and politicians in India. Later, Amnesty International said it had found Pegasus spyware from Israeli company NSO Group on the iPhones of prominent Indian journalists.

Also in this case, there are many indications that the famous Pegasus or similar software from another company is used for attacks. “Mercenary spyware attacks, such as those using NSO’s Pegasus, are exceptionally rare and more sophisticated than regular cybercriminal activity or consumer malware,” it says.

Pegasus is a nuclear weapon in the hands of the services. “Total Surveillance Tool”

Pegasus is advanced spyware created by the Israeli company NSO Group, founded in 2010 by former members of the Israel Intelligence Corps. Theoretically, it works similarly to typical spyware applications that are used to steal information from smartphones or computers. However, Pegasus is definitely more effective.

There are many ways to infect a given device with Pegasus. This can be done, for example, by sending a message with a link to the victim’s phone, an e-mail with an infected document, or even a simple push notification. Clicking on a link, opening a file or displaying a notification may result in your phone being infected and then accessed by services using Pegasus. Until 2016, sending a suspicious message to a potential victim was the only way to launch the spy machine on his phone, but this option is still sometimes used today.

Before 2019, Pegasus also used a vulnerability in the WhatsApp messenger, which allowed for “entering the device” by making a call (so that it would not be answered by a potential victim) and then deleting the missed call notification from the phone. In July 2021, it was revealed that Pegasus could also get into iPhones through a vulnerability in the iMessage app. Even newer methods are, of course, kept top secret.

“It is a tool of such total surveillance that it causes the object of control to be every person in the surveillanced environment. Every place where they are, every random conversation on the street, in a shop, in church, during confession,” she said in 2022, during a meeting of the Senate extraordinary committee, prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek, who was herself a victim of Pegasus surveillance.