petcat
an hour ago
> In May 2026, Kouloglou contacted the Citizen Lab and we conducted a forensic analysis of artifacts from his iPhone. We found with high confidence that his device was successfully infected with Pegasus spyware on or around October 21, 2022, and again on March 6 and 7, 2023.
VWWHFSfQ
an hour ago
>> Further validating our finding of targeting, our forensic analysis shows Kouloglou received multiple Apple threat notifications about targeting with mercenary spyware on three occasions: March 2, 2023, August 29, 2023, and April 10, 2024. It is important to note that threat notifications from Apple and other companies are not real-time alerts. They are typically sent to users in batches, often months or more after targeting takes place.
>> Kouloglou reports to us that he did not recall receiving the Apple notifications we observed.
Am I understanding this correctly that Apple sent him notifications that he was being monitored and he ignored them?
pmontra
an hour ago
"he did not recall receiving the Apple notifications" so he didn't notice them.
bawolff
16 minutes ago
That is kind of surprising given he is on the comittee investigating pegasus. I'd assume someone on the comittee would be paying much more attention to this than a normal person.
I wonder what triggered him to suspect he was hacked then. Since presumably something triggered him to have his phone forensically investigated.
arka2147483647
43 minutes ago
Could those have been intercepted or suppressed somehow?
stavros
16 minutes ago
It's possible, if the attacker controls the device enough. I don't think a big "you're being targeted" warning is something you don't notice, or forget.
captn3m0
an hour ago
Do we know how Apple sends these? Is it just a notification, or also email?
krackers
42 minutes ago
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102174
>A Threat Notification is displayed at the top of the page after the user signs into account.apple.com.
>Apple sends an email and iMessage notification to the email addresses and phone numbers associated with the user’s Apple Account.
You can see what it looks like in https://reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/1c10jai/i_have_received...
I wonder how they detect it, is it for known IOCs that they've already found elsewhere, or do they have heuristic detection that flags things that might need further investigation.
saintfire
20 minutes ago
I mean his device was pwnd completely. Its not a stretch that attempts to warn are suppressed.
That or he didn't notice or could have assumed the notice itself was one of many phishing attempts against large orgs.
If I saw a notification that my account was compromised by Pegasus I'd personally assume phishing.
stavros
14 minutes ago
Kouloglou is a famous investigative journalist, not you and me. Yes you and I might think we're being scammed, but someone who actually spent a lot of their life getting death threats probably would pay more attention.
benjiro29
4 minutes ago
Fairly sure that if anybody using a advanced piece of hacking software, they are also going to delete any messages that are related to detection of such hardware.
PC viruses used to do that stuff going back so many years ago. Suppressing any notification under Windows, by disabling the AV software, its notifications, windows notifications related to it.
So it will amaze me that this is not done by any modern espionage software. Especially as the notification methods are known. Given that his device is hacked, that means a lot of avenues are under control of the espionage software. Even mails etc ... So impersonating the end user, to confirm they read a warning, is extreme easy.
I find it rather odd that people are so fixated on the idea if Kouloglou read it or not.
EA-3167
an hour ago
That seems to be the case, although he claims to have somehow missed them. Overall this is one of those stories that's obviously an outrage, except for the fact that every country on Earth spies on the rest, and quite a few private entities do as well. Still the way the game is played if you get caught you have to act ashamed, and the people catching you get to gloat.
It's silly, but it's a show the public never tires of.
healthworker
an hour ago
In this case he was investigating misuse of Pegasus spyware specifically, and was targeted with it while doing so. That's obstruction of justice, morally speaking, and would feel very scary, in that it would make you feel that this company might be so powerful that investigating it is personally dangerous.
EA-3167
43 minutes ago
That's certainly the feeling the story is meant to engender yes.
hammock
24 minutes ago
The US does not spy on Five Eyes government leadership or that of Israel. And perhaps more: in the wake of Snowden, which obliterated many diplomatic relationships the U.S. has with other countries, Obama issued a directive that the U.S. would not monitor heads of state and government of close friends and allies (even outside Five Eyes) unless there was a compelling national security reason. As far as we know that directive has remained in force with each successive administration as well.
They spy on most others though. Germany’s Merkel, successive French presidents etc all had their phones hacked by US there is widely reported news of.
leonidasrup
6 minutes ago
US does spy on Five Eyes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_espionage_in_Aus...
"In December 2010, leaked US diplomatic cables indicated senior New Zealand Defence Ministry officials had been spying for the United States, secretly briefing the United States embassy on Cabinet discussions about the Iraq War."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_espionage_in_New_Zeala...