How to Detect Pegasus Spyware

Have you wondered how your phone is hacked even when you didn’t click on any link, neither you shared your screen with anyone nor you shared your OTP or any password with anyone? Well, let us tell you how it happened. Another widespread method of mobile phone and laptop hacking is attacking through spyware known as Pegasus. To know more about this spyware and its working methodology, check our YouTube video, “What is Pegasus Malware & How it works?”

What is Pegasus Spyware?

It is malicious software designed in a way that it enters your device, digs out your data from the device, makes a copy of the important information, and sends it to a third party without the consent of the mobile phone user. This unwanted and unintentional transfer of your data from your device to someone else leads to data theft and makes you prone to blackmail and other associated crimes. This spyware is able to read the message, call record, and email data of a user and then takes screenshots of the pictures and videos from your device, read the keystrokes to re-construct the possible passwords, and gets access to your personal data like browser history, etc.

How To Detect The Pegasus Spyware?

Now, as we have discussed how difficult it is to analyze the presence of this spyware in your system, you must have known by now that its presence in the system can cause serious issues. It is highly sophisticated and undetectable spyware since it uses advanced encryption to prevent its detection. This software’s self-destruct feature of erasing all the traces of infecting the device is another feature that prevents its identification and detection.

Therefore to detect the presence of this software in your system the Amnesty International Security Lab has launched a forensic iOS or Android analysis system known as Mobile Verification Toolkit (MVT) to trace its presence in the user’s system. As of now, it is the only way to detect the presence of Pegasus in a system.

Follow us at Lloyd Institute of Forensic Science to learn more about such interesting topics and increase your knowledge base.

How to Protect Device against Pegasus?

Since Pegasus is serious spyware and has the potential of sharing highly sensitive information of a user. It can lead to identity theft, financial fraud, phone tapping, etc hence it is quite important for a person to protect their device against the presence of Pegasus spyware in the device. Some of the methods that can be followed in order to protect against this malicious spyware are as follows:

• Use of An Antivirus: To avoid attack by any suspicious software on your system, the user must use appropriate antivirus software. By regularly scanning the device to identify the presence of any kind of spyware and enabling real-time protection from external threats.
• Avoid Bundled Software: Criminals involved in cybercrime often use spyware bundled with legitimate software. Therefore, we recommend you use advanced or custom installation options and proper inspection of the installed programs.
• Follow Safe Browsing: People should refrain from clicking on any kind of backlinks that your receive through emails, text messages, messaging apps, etc.

The protection of your system and data is your responsibility and therefore you should follow safe practices and take care of your data. Because if your data is made public then cyber criminals will not let you stay happy.