New spyware with capabilities similar to Pegasus deployed on journalists and political opposition figures

According to a report in The Guardian, a new spyware called ‘Reign’ has emerged with capabilities similar to those of the controversial Pegasus spyware developed by the Israeli NSO Group. Researchers at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto discovered that the Israeli company QuaDream developed the Reign spyware and has likely already deployed it on journalists and political opposition figures. Victims of the Reign spyware were infected through a malicious iCloud calendar invitation sent by the company, masquerading as a legitimate one from a government client. The attack is known as a ‘zero-click’ spy attack as the victim does not have to click on any malicious link to get infected. The Reign spyware can record conversations happening near the phone, read encrypted messages, and track the user’s location.

The Citizen Lab stated that it has identified at least five civil society victims of the Reign spyware in North America, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The Israeli company may have sold its services to government clients in Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Singapore, and Ghana while pitching it to high-level bureaucracy officers in Indonesia and Morocco. Interestingly, QuaDream was founded in 2016 by former NSO employees but has a relatively small corporate presence. The company’s employees have been instructed not to mention their employer on social media.

The Reign spyware’s ability to pierce through Apple’s sophisticated security features has raised questions about the tech giant’s ability to defend against such threats. Apple responded to the report by stating that there was no indication that Reign had been used since 2021 and that it would work tirelessly to protect its users from highly targeted cyberattacks.

The Guardian report also referenced the Pegasus controversy, which was first exposed by Forbidden Stories, Amnesty International, and a consortium of journalists from 17 news outlets across the world two years ago. Pegasus infiltrated phones to vacuum up personal and location data and surreptitiously control the smartphone’s microphones and cameras. The NSO Group is also being sued by Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly targeting some 1,400 users of its encrypted messaging service WhatsApp with its spyware.