This is how Pegasus works, the spy program that infected Independentistas’ cell phones

Read WhatsApp messages, emails or listen to all mobile communication. That’s what it can (and does) Pegasusthe spy software developed by the Israeli company NSO Groupwhat has infected devices of at least 60 politicians, including Pere Aragonès, Arnaldo Otegi or Jon Iñarritu, according to the ‘Catalangate’ report released Monday by Citizen Lab.

As explained by Igor Unanue, head of the company S21sec and cybersecurity expert in the Euskadi Irratia program Faktoria, the software “abuses the vulnerability of the phone, sends an SMS and without the user doing anything, they get infected via the “zero click” method.In addition, leave no traces on the phone, go into fleeting memory not installed on hard drive and therefore we don’t know whether or not it is” on our device.

Once you enter the device, you can do everything: you can activate/deactivate the microphone, to be able to listen whatever you want, you can read the messages from whatsappof the e-mail text message… and you can listen to all the communication that the mobile manages.

Regarding the Israeli company that developed this program for governments, Unanue explains that there are several companies worldwide that are dedicated to it: “I know four that do this kind of program, and their customers are the governments, they are the normally invest in this kind of software, for secret services, for anti-terrorist groups… and if they make it available to other kinds of customers it’s not good, but the ones i know mainly serve police forces.

But, How do you know if your mobile is infected with Pegasus? Unanue explains that there are programs to detect whether or not your phone is infected with Pegasus, but still it becomes more and more difficult because once you have been introduced to a new version, it is more difficult to detect it. “They work based on the versions of the operating systems, their job is undetectable.”