A groundbreaking exploit in iMessage enables hackers to infiltrate iPhones without the user's knowledge.

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Recently, a detailed report revealed that in July and August 2020, the NSO Group's Pegasus spyware was used to hack the phones of 36 journalists, producers, and employees at Al Jazeera. iPhones were compromised using the Zero-click iMessage vulnerability and a exploit chain named KISMET. It operated on iPhones running iOS 13.5.1 - the latest version of iOS 13 at the time.

Pegasus by NSO Group is remote smartphone surveillance software, utilized by numerous governments worldwide as well as law enforcement agencies. According to Citizen Lab's report, since 2016, there has been a rise in Zero-click attacks on iPhones, with hackers targeting iMessage due to its ubiquity on all iPhones. The danger of this Zero-click vulnerability lies in its requirement-free exploitation, hence its name. Al Araby TV journalist Rania Dridi reported that her iPhone Xs Max was compromised at least 6 times, with 2 instances being Zero-click attacks. Rania's iPhone Xs Max was also running iOS 13.5.1 at the time.

The worst scenario unfolds when iPhones are implanted with Pegasus NSO Group's spyware, capable of recording surrounding sounds, call audio, taking photos, tracking locations, accessing any stored accounts on the phone, by infiltrating password storage on the iPhone.

The silver lining remains as there haven't been any reports yet regarding hacking iPhones running iOS 14 through Zero-click or KISMET. Therefore, anyone on iOS 13.5.1 or lower should consider upgrading to iOS 14 if they value their data.

According to iPhoneHacks.

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