After almost two years of dust starting to settle on the Pegasus spying software by Israel's NSO Group, it's back in the news. The startling discovery of the phone numbers belonging to hundreds of journalists, activists, opposition politicians, government officials and business executives were on the snooping list using the Pegasus spyware. With this, many are concerned if they too have been infected by the spyware.
Pegasus is engineered to evade defences on iPhones and Android devices and to leave few traces of its attack. Familiar privacy measures like strong passwords and encryption offer little help against it, which can attack phones without any warning to users. It can read anything on a device that a user can, while also stealing photos, recordings, location records, communications, passwords, call logs and social media posts. Spyware also can activate cameras and microphones for real-time surveillance.
For people to be concerned about being infected by Pegasus, it's justified. Now here's a way to tell if your phone has been infected by it.
How to tell if your phone is infected by Pegasus?
Since the Pegasus row is picking up pace again, researchers at Amnesty have created a toolkit to find out if your phone has been infected by Pegasus. Given the gravity of the situation, the toolkit is made available to all for free. It is published on Github as an open source for everyone to access.
Dubbed the Mobile Verification Toolkit (MVT), it works on iOS and Android as well. The toolkit analysis the iPhone's backup copy to inspect for any traces of Pegasus. On Android phones, the app installation files or APKs or Android backup is analysed for suspicious content. The toolkit uses VirusTotal and Koodus to run check on the APKs during the process.
How to install MVT?
Users need to install a Python Package first, which is available on MVT website. Detailed instructions to guide you through it all are published on the website. Users must back up their devices in order for the toolkit to scan for traces of infection.
