CUPERTINO – If you have an iPhone be afraid, be very afraid. A terrifying new spyware, dubbed Trident, can break through the security protection to read texts and email, record calls (including WhatsApp and Viber calls), track your location and turn on your phone’s camera and microphone.
Trident exploits three zero-day vulnerabilities in iOS 9 to form an “attack chain” that can break through Apple’s (relatively) secure platform. According to University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, Trident is used in a spyware product developed by Israel-based “cyber war” company NSO Group (which is reportedly owned by an American venture capital firm).
Citizen Lab and Lookout became aware of the issue when links containing the Trident exploit and the spyware were sent to Ahmed Mansoor, a human rights defender based in the United Arab Emirates. Mansoor did not click on the links and instead forwarded the emails to Citizen Lab, but had he clicked on the links, his phone would have been remotely jailbroken and invaded by NSO Group’s “government-exclusive” spyware. Upon confirming the zero-day iOS vulnerabilities, Citizen Lab and Lookout notified Apple — and now Apple has released a fix.
If you want to update your phone, click on this link: http://www.cnet.com/how-to/iphone-ios-security-update-malware/
