_probably_ is doing the heavy lifting here
>> 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?
I wonder what triggered him to suspect he was hacked then. Since presumably something triggered him to have his phone forensically investigated.
Not saying this is likely. Just another possibility.
Have you seen notifications on iOS? There are even notifications for the notifications.
But this type of notification I believe is delivered via iMessage and email. So unless you’re actively using iMessage or your icloud email then chances are all this is practically invisible.
So in other words he probably speaks about security, whatever his staffers feed him, but most likely has no clue whatsoever what it's about.
Then again, you’d think that’s the kinda thing malware developers would spend some time learning to hide from the user.
>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.
It isn’t hard to accidentally dismiss one then wonder what it was. Why there isn’t there an interface for looking back?
Edit: below it says there are emails and notices on web login.
I think the proof of Apple’s level of care is in their lack of attention to this issue.
Ephemeral transit layer owned by third-parties constantly,
vs
cold storage of secrets your architecture owns from start to finish.
This is a good description of SMS and RCS.
or a car,
or your off-brand earbuds.
Oh wait this is apple, they always know whats best for the user and do the choices for them, even when wrong. So all is as expected
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.
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.
Its going to have every trick in the book (and outside it), to stay hidden. And it will have payloads to alter its behavior, updates, etc...
Nobody is going to pay you big fat money envelops for software that anybody can write in a afternoon. You want it to be as capable as ever, and you do not want it found!
It's silly, but it's a show the public never tires of.
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.
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...
Doubt.
> unless there was a compelling national security reason
There always is.
Can you substantiate your doubt with even one piece of hard evidence?
Believe such nonsense at your own peril.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_espionage_in_the_Unite...
> In 1951, Mossad and the Central Intelligence Agency agreed not to spy on each other and US and Israeli services cooperated closely since then.
> Nevertheless, there were strong indications afterwards of ongoing Israeli espionage against the United States, confirmed by the 1985 arrest of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, one of the most damaging security leaks in US history.
> Israeli espionage reached a high-profile peak in the mid-1980s, shattering assumptions that allies "do not spy on each other".
2.Asking for hard evidence of top spies secretly spying on heads of other states is … (not sure if there is a word for it; some blend between: unrealistic, unreasonable and oxymoron’ish. If they do their job well, you will not find it out, also it might be illegal or punishable to present such evidence)
People can state a lot, as long as your not caught.
Nothing prevent you from having the UK spy on the Germans, and feeding that intel back. Or Israel, or ... Hey, the US did not spy on a EU ally. Well, not directly and it neatly bypassed any official statements.
They might have simply gone to one of those secret court hearings and have it bypassed with a gag order in place. Officially its not done, unofficially, its been approved.
The whole "as long as you do not tell me your doing it" approach, and the politicians involve maintain deniability (even if they had the wink).
And you do not need to specific target the head off state. Plenty of side routes to still get information on meetings, that involve those heads of states. Even if your not "directly" spying on them.
So no, its a naïve way of thinking. Maybe in 20 years from now we find out, that they did spy on EU leaders. Maybe directly, maybe indirectly ... even with that directive in place. I will be amazed if they did not. Its the US we are talking about.
But there never is a lack of compelling national security reasons.
Color me extremely sceptical.
It's entirely possible an EU country did this; they're only vaguely guessing Belarus or whoever. In most countries, it's a big deal if the spies are caught spying on the domestic government.
> quite a few private entities do as well.
It's a risky game, doing that. You don't get any of the professional courtesies, and you're not usually eligible for the prisoner exchanges.