Apple has issued a warning that unknown attackers have breached and infected some US State Department employees' iPhones with the Pegasus spyware developed by Israeli firm NSO Group, according to BleepingComputer.
The Washington Post reported that at least 11 State Department employees involved in Uganda had been targeted in recent months. NSO had already canceled customer accounts associated with the attacks but it was unaware of the tools leveraged in the attack, according to a spokesperson who told Reuters, which first reported the incident.
Speaking to Motherboard, an NSO spokesperson said that the firm will be working with government authorities aside from conducting an independent investigation.
"To clarify, the installation of our software by the customer occurs via phone numbers. As stated before, NSO’s technologies are blocked from working on US (+1) numbers. Once the software is sold to the licensed customer, NSO has no way to know who the targets of the customers are, as such, we were not and could not have been aware of this case," said the spokesperson.
Several U.S. defense and government organizations have been targeted by state-backed Chinese hacking group Bronze Silhouette, also known as Volt Typhoon, for military intelligence over a period of at least two years, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
Russian, North Korean, and Iranian advanced persistent threat operations have been launching more attacks aimed at compromising small- and medium-sized businesses, as well as their regional managed service providers, reports SecurityWeek.
Separate cyberattacks have been launched by Iranian advanced persistent threat groups against Israel-based entities, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.