UAE-based human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor received very suspicious yet enticing text messages last Aug. 10 and 11, which included a clickable link to access the secrets behind tortures in UAE jails.
Fortunately, he did not fall for the trap.
Otherwise, his iPhone 6 would have become a spy camera, microphone and locator. Whoever sent the link would be able to access and send images from his phone's camera, locate him wherever he might be and hear everything through his phone's microphone.
Mansoor instead sent the link to Citizen Lab for investigation. A very wise move.
Citizen Lab was able to trace the links in the text messages to the Israel-based cyber-warfare company, NSO Group Technologies.
The company is reportedly owned by the Francisco Partners Management, a US based venture capital firm. NSO Group has been widely known to market these kind of packages including totally legal and government-exclusive spyware package called Pegasus.
According to Citizen Lab, Mansoor has been known as a target of the UAE government.
Regrettably, the UAE government is not the only one connected to NSO.
Apple confirmed users' vulnerability to these cyber-attacks quietly through the release of Security Updates for iPhones and Macs.
These security updates promise to protect Apple device users from mischievous hackers and their possibility of spying users.
The tech giant is necessitating every Apple device user to update their iPhones and Macs to iOS 9.3.5, OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan and 10.10.5 Yosemite.
Hopefully, these updates will be enough to protect everyone from cyber warfare companies or even from the simple hackers who wish to invade our privacy.
