You may have heard about Pegasus, which is a spyware created by the NSO group based on zero-day vulnerabilities to collect data from smartphones without user consent. Now iMazing has updated its app to include a new tool that can easily detect Pegasus spyware on iPhone.
As we reported last month, Amnesty International has released a tool that helps users detect if a device has been infected with Pegasus. However, this method is quite complicated for a regular user as it requires compiling code available on GitHub. Luckily, iMazing has now implemented the same detection methodology in the latest version of its software.
Starting with iMazing 2.14 for macOS or Windows, the app is able to detect Pegasus spyware on iPhone. All you have to do is connect your device to a computer and then run the Spyware Detection using the iMazing app. However, as iMazing itself acknowledges, you probably won’t need this as “the vast majority of iPhone users aren’t at risk.”
While a simple text message from iMessage can compromise the iPhone with the spyware, regular users are not the target of attacks. Pegasus has been used by governments to track down human rights activists, lawyers, journalists, and politicians. Earlier this week, it was revealed that female journalists from Al-Jazeera had private photos leaked as a result of the Pegasus spyware.
At the same time, we started getting Pegasus-related requests from current iMazing users, and noticed increasing interest in MVT from a public not always tech-savvy enough to successfully run its command-line tools. We took the plunge, shifting most of our Windows and macOS development resources to the realisation of a fully integrated equivalent in iMazing.
Today, we are releasing the result of that work as a free feature in iMazing 2.14. No setup or prior backup is required – all it takes to get started is to launch iMazing, connect an iPhone and select the Detect Spyware action.
You can try iMazing for free on your Mac or PC. The full license with support for unlimited devices costs $59.99 per year. More details on how the app detects Pegasus spyware can be found on iMazing’s website.
