Newly found zero-click iPhone exploit used in NSO spyware attacks

By Sergiu Gatlan, Bleeping Computers

Digital threat researchers at Citizen Lab have discovered a new zero-click iMessage exploit used to install NSO Group spyware on iPhones belonging to Catalan politicians, journalists, and activists.

The previously unknown iOS zero-click security flaw dubbed HOMAGE affects some versions before iOS 13.2 (the latest stable iOS version is 15.4).

It was used in a campaign targeting at least 65 people with NSO's Pegasus spyware between 2017 and 2020, together with the Kismet iMessage exploit and a WhatsApp flaw.

Among the victims of these attacks, Citizen Lab mentioned Catalan Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), every Catalan president since 2010, as well as Catalan legislators, jurists, journalists, and members of civil society organizations and their families.

"Among Catalan targets, we did not see any instances of the HOMAGE exploit used against a device running a version of iOS greater than 13.1.3. It is possible that the exploit was fixed in iOS 13.2," Citizen Lab said.

"We are not aware of any zero-day, zero-click exploits deployed against Catalan targets following iOS 13.1.3 and before iOS 13.5.1."

The academic research lab has reported and provided Apple with the forensic artifacts needed to investigate the exploit and says there is no evidence that Apple customers using the latest versions of iOS are exposed to HOMAGE attacks.

"At this time the Citizen Lab is not conclusively attributing these hacking operations to a particular government, however a range of circumstantial evidence points to a strong nexus with one or more entities within Spanish government," Citizen Lab added.




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