Apple in the U.S. faced a double setback ahead of the release of its new iPhone 15 on the 12th (local time). While the Chinese government issued a ban on iPhones for government officials, causing a market capitalization of approximately $190 billion to evaporate, hacking vulnerabilities were discovered in devices such as iPhones.
Apple announced an emergency software security update on the 7th. This is because it has been reported that Apple devices can be exposed to spyware ‘Pegasus’ created by the Israeli NSO Group. Spyware refers to malicious software that secretly steals information from a mobile phone.
Pegasus is a famous spyware that has been used to hack the mobile phones of various civic groups, journalists, and corporate executives. Hackers send a large number of indiscriminate text messages through Pegasus, and are infected with spyware just by receiving them. Once infected, hackers can read messages stored on the smartphone, remotely control the camera and microphone, and even track the location. Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto in Canada said, “As soon as we discovered the security vulnerability, we notified Apple of it, and Apple took action.”
This is not the first time Pegasus and Apple have had a bad relationship. In November 2021, Apple sued NSO Group, which created Pegasus, and banned the development and distribution of malicious software targeting Apple devices. At the time, Apple claimed $75,000 (about 100 million won) in damages from NSO Group. The U.S. Department of Commerce also placed this NSO on its trade blacklist. The Financial Times (FT) reported, “NSO continues to find weaknesses in its operating system even though it is experiencing serious financial problems due to sanctions from the U.S. government.”
