Nowadays, most platforms, including Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo, work on end-to-end encryption Technology to keep the user’s data safe from any anonymous access. For example, if you want to send a message to your friend, then the end-to-end encryption technology will take the message from your phone, wrap it in the form of a packet, and the message will only be unwrapped on the recipient’s phone. This technology ensures that anyone in between can’t read the message, even though he could intercept the message using anonymous means.
However, most governments do not favour the end-to-end encryption policy, as it makes it hard for them to spy on bureaucrats, journalists, opposition party members, criminals, and terrorists. At this point, it enters the Israeli Technology Firm NSO Group with its Pegasus spyware.
So, in this post, I will answer every question about Pegasus spyware, including – what it is, how it infiltrates smartphones, why NSO developed Pegasus spyware, and most importantly, how to remove Pegasus spyware from Android and iPhone.
What Is Pegasus Spyware?
Pegasus Spyware is so outrageous and dangerous that most people cannot understand the impact it will have on the world. For instance, France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, changed his phone ever since he found out his name was on the list of people who Pegasus Spyware had attacked. In most countries, various agencies have already started investigating this spyware. But what exactly is Pegasus spyware?
Pegasus is just a name given to this spyware taken from Greek mythology. Spyware is a kind of software that secretly gets into your smartphone or computer, gathers all the personal information stored in it, and sends the collected data to some anonymous person. This spyware can access your camera and location and steal information from your WhatsApp or photos stored in a gallery. In short, the main motto of spyware is to spy or keep an eye on your day-to-day life.
How Does Pegasus Spyware Enter Smartphones?
Now that you know what Pegasus spyware is, you might wonder how it will enter your smartphone.
During the initial days of Pegasus Spyware, victims received random links via SMS or WhatsApp. And once the victim clicked on that link, his phone was automatically infected by the Pegasus spyware. But now, the method used for spreading the Pegasus virus has changed. Now, they work on Zero-Click attack Technology, i.e., the victim’s device will be affected even though he hasn’t clicked on any malicious website or app.
The victim will receive a kind of WhatsApp message or a missed call from a random number, and even though the victim doesn’t respond to the missed call, his phone will be affected by the Pegasus Spyware. The person spreading the spyware needs to know your phone number, and that’s enough for him to spread the spyware on your device. Pegasus spyware can attack Android and iOS smartphones, and that’s why it’s considered so dangerous and shocking.
Why NSO Group Developed Pegasus Spyware?
As per the NGO claim, they have created Pegasus spyware to help Government Intelligence and Law Enforcement Agencies to catch terrorists and fight against crime and criminals. Recently, the Mexican Government used the Pegasus spyware to catch Mexican drug lord El Chappo.
But, as with everything in the world, Pegasus Spyware also has two sides to the coin. According to recent leaks, various governments and agencies are taking advantage of Pegasus Spyware illegally. They are using it to watch over journalists, opposition parties, protests, and other ongoing movements in their respective countries.
Nevertheless, without going much deeper into the political area of this matter, let’s look at how to remove Pegasus spyware from Android and iPhone.
How To Remove Pegasus Spyware From Android And iPhone?
The worst thing about Pegasus Spyware is that we can’t detect the source from where it came to our device. Once it’s in, it can easily read our SMS, track our locations, use our microphones, and even steal our personal information. However, to do all these things will require permission from our Android or iOS smartphone. Therefore, with the help of some forensic tests, we can easily track down spyware using this method. So, to remove Pegasus spyware from Android and iPhone, we will use two tools. First, MVT or Mobile Verification Toolkit, and second, iMazing (only for iPhone).
Remove Pegasus Spyware From Android And iPhone Using MVT.
Mobile Verification Toolkit, or MVT, is a tool designed for the forensic testing of Android and iOS devices. Its main motto is to detect any malware and spyware installed on any smartphone. Luckily, it can even detect Pegasus Spyware installed on both Android and IOS devices. With time, developers continuously become involved in the capabilities of this tool. Before using this tool to remove Pegasus spyware from Android and iPhone, you must check for some key MVT features.
- Work with iOS system and apps database, logs, and system analytics.
- Get access to installed applications on Android devices.
- Get access to diagnostic information on Android devices using the ADB protocol.
- Get access to encrypted iOS backups.
- Create a list of extracted records and detect malicious traces in Android and iOS smartphones.
Check out the video below to learn how to use MVT to remove Pegasus Spyware from Android and iOS smartphones.
Remove Pegasus Spyware From iPhone Using iMazing
If you don’t have much coding skills, then you can use the iMazing tool to detect Pegasus Spyware on your iOS device. This tool is designed using MVT as a reference and can be installed on Mac and Windows PCs.
The Pegasus Spyware feature is available on the iMazing 2.14 version. Many experts praise the tool because of its simple-to-use interface; most importantly, it doesn’t require any coding knowledge. However, theirs almost a 0.01% chance that your smartphone will be affected by Pegasus Spyware unless and until you are a famous personality. But you can still use iMazing to detect Pegasus spyware on your iOS device. You can download Amazing for Mac and Windows PCs by visiting the tool’s official website.
Follow the steps below to use iMazing to remove Pegasus Spyware from your iPhone.
- After installing iMazing 2.14 or later on your Windows PC or Mac, plug your iPhone into the computer using a USB cable.
- Click on the key option present on the right side of the iMazing home screen. From several options available, click on Detect Spyware.
- In the next window on your screen, click on the Next button to start the spyware detection tool.
- You must download Structured Threat Information Expression (STIX) files from the iMazing server to proceed further.
- Once the download is completed, you must create a local backup of all the data stored on your iPhone for deep analysis. To add a password to your backed-up iPhone data, you must enable Backup Encryption.
- The app will automatically back up all the data stored on your iPhone.
- Once iMazing is done backing up all the data stored on your iPhone, it will decrypt them and search for malicious files, including Pegasus spyware.
After a deep search, you will see whether any spyware is on your device. It will take almost one hour to complete the process.
