UN investigators called for a government inquiry after a forensic investigation found that Amazon chief Jeff Bezos’s phone was hacked while he was messaging with the Saudi crown prince, “most likely” using hacking tools made by cyberweapons companies such as NSO Group or Hacking Team.
Exactly how it happened is still unclear—investigators have been unable to analyze the root file system of Bezos’s iPhone. But the basic details offer lessons in the unregulated hacker-for-hire industry, the vulnerabilities of modern devices, and the lengths to which governments will go to silence their critics.
NSO Group’s zero-click spyware is capable of stealing data from many popular smartphones, without a recipient so much as clicking or opening a link, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was one of its users, paying $55 million to NSO in 2017, according to Haaretz. A spokesperson for the controversial Israel-based company told Fast Company that its weapons “are only used to investigate…
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Source : fastcompany.com
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