“Attacks like the ones described are highly sophisticated, cost millions of dollars to develop, often have a short shelf life, and are used to target specific individuals.”

“We’d like to commend Citizen Lab for successfully completing the very difficult work of obtaining a sample of this exploit so we could develop this fix quickly,” Krstić said. Ivan Krstić, head of Security Engineering and Architecture at Apple, told The Hill in a statement Monday that Apple had “rapidly developed” the security updates after identifying the vulnerability. “This spyware can do everything an iPhone user can do on their device and more,” John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, told The New York Times on Monday. The vulnerability discovered by the researchers targeted the Apple image rendering library, enabling NSO Group to remotely infect and exploit the targeted devices. The New York Times first reported the discovery of the vulnerability on Monday.Ĭitizen Lab researchers discovered the vulnerability while examining the phone of a Saudi Arabian activist that had been known to be infected with an NSO Group spyware program.

Apple security update closes flaw macs