How To Install Pegasus In Phone?

Pegasus is a very trending spyware at the current time. It is mostly used to gain access to a phone through a malicious web link through a message, email, or phone call. Once a user clicked on the link or pick the call, Pegasus would be installed on the phone. Researchers found that it could be even installed on the phone with just a missed WhatsApp call.

Pegasus is very interesting because once it had access to the device, it could delete any call logs, thus making it virtually impossible for the victim to know that their phone was a target by the spyware.

Pegasus Features

Pegasus is capable of reading text messages, tracking calls, collecting passwords, tracking location, accessing the target device’s microphone and camera, and harvesting information from apps. It contacts control servers that enable it to relay commands and gather information from the infected device.

Note: According to Citizen Lab of University of Toronto, “This malware is designed to evade forensic analysis, avoid detection by anti-virus software, and can be deactivated and removed by operators remotely.”

How To Get Rid Of Pegasus?

Many of cybersecurity analysts and experts have pointed out that the only way to get completely rid of Pegasus is to discard the phone that has been affected. According to Citizen Lab, even factory resetting your smartphone will not be useful as it cannot get rid of the spyware completely.

In order to ensure your online accounts are safe, you should also change the passwords of all the cloud-based applications and services that you were using on the infected device.

Price Of Pegasus Spyware

Israeli company NSO Group charges governments a hefty fee for use of its surveillance tool Pegasus, according to a report by The New York Times.

NSO charges a flat $500,000 (around Rs 3.7 crore) fee for installing Pegasus.

• It charges government agencies $650,000 (Rs 4.8 crore) to spy on 10 iPhones.
• It charges government agencies $650,000 for 10 Android users.
• It charges government agencies $500,000 for five BlackBerry users.
• It charges government agencies $300,000 for five Symbian users.
• One hundred additional targets will cost $800,000 (around Rs 5.9 crore).
• 50 extra targets cost $500,000.

 

How it works

An earlier version of Pegasus was installed on smartphones through vulnerabilities in commonly used apps or by spear-phishing, which involves tricking a targeted user into clicking a link or opening a document that secretly installs the software. It can also be installed over a wireless transceiver located near a target, or manually if an agent can steal the target’s phone.

Pegasus can infiltrate a smartphone via the widely used messaging app WhatsApp without the phone’s user noticing. Christoph Scholz/Flickr, CC BY-SA

Since 2019, Pegasus users have been able to install the software on smartphones with a missed call on WhatsApp, and can even delete the record of the missed call, making it impossible for the phone’s owner to know anything is amiss. Another way is by simply sending a message to a user’s phone  

 that produces no notification.

This means the latest version of this spyware does not require the smartphone user to do anything. All that is required for a successful spyware attack and installation is having a particularly vulnerable app or operating system installed on the device. This is known as a zero-click exploit.

Once installed, Pegasus can theoretically harvest any data from the device and transmit it back to the attacker. It can steal photos and videos, recordings, location records, communications, web searches, passwords, call logs, and social media posts. It also has the capability to activate cameras and microphones for real-time surveillance without the permission or knowledge of the user.