Self-scans reveal that Pegasus, an invasive and powerful spyware that can secretly control phones and track owners, might be more widespread than previously thought. It was discovered on the phones of everyday phone users.
From wikiHow: How to Check Your Smartphone for Pegasus Spyware
Amnesty International provides a FOSS tool to check your mobile backups for traces of the Pegasus Spyware. I’d trust that over a sketchy proprietary app. Link: https://docs.mvt.re.
Cool. I had no idea. Still…
It can help you if you think you are BUT especially with iPhones it can only scan your backup, unless you jailbreak the phone and can do a full disk dump.
As a mobile security expert this is just one of the tools in the kit, but it ought not be used by a “end user” as a verification tool. This does NOT verify you aren’t being tracked, it can only verify that signatures of the malware exist.
And would signatures of Pegasus exist in the backup?
Yes. Maybe. Sometimes. Much more likely if you do an encrypted backup and decrypt it with the tool.
Regardless it’s not guaranteed to pick them up.
May give it a try one of these days. But knowing nothing of the reliability of the tool in detecting the malware decreases my motivation to even try I must say.
The warning was meant for you.
Everyone is safe from Pegasus …
Except cell phone owners (which is most everyone)
Exception to the exception : people who know about this excellent FOOS tool (and know someone who can use it) - - thanks
Ugh. So it looks like I can’t even do this with Termux. Gotta dig out one of my few cables that does data transfer.