Researchers at information security group Citizen Lab said Thursday they have discovered spyware linked to Israeli company NSO, which exploited a recently discovered vulnerability in Apple devices.
Last week, while examining an Apple device owned by a civil society worker in Washington, Citizen Lab said in a statement that it found that a vulnerability in NSO's Pegasus spyware had been exploited to infect the device.
"This suggests that civil society is once again functioning as an early warning system for really sophisticated attacks," said John Scott-Railton, a senior fellow at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
Citizen Lab has not provided further information about the people or organizations involved.
The defect allows iPhones running the latest version of the operating system (iOS 16.6) to be hacked without any interaction from the victim, according to the Information Security Group.
Apple has released a new update for its devices after validating a bug reported by Citizen Lab. A company spokesperson said there was no further comment, while Citizen Lab urged consumers to update their devices.
An Office for National Statistics spokesman told Reuters there was no immediate comment on the Citizen Lab study.
The US government has blacklisted the Israeli company since 2021 for violations including: spying on government officials and journalists.