On Wednesday 9th February 2022 Salt Communications hosted a webinar with The Security Institute around the subject of Pegasus Spyware. In this webinar Salt’s CEO, Joe Boyle discussed how hackers use Pegasus smartphone spyware to obtain access to your systems, and steal data and voice information. As the threats of mobile security continue to rise in 2022, Salt will continue to take part in these types of events in a bid to educate interested parties on the latest trends.
Recent reports claim that a new variant of the aggressive Pegasus mobile spyware has infected the mobile devices of over 50,000 people in 50 nations. Salt advises security focuses organisations about Pegasus and other spyware in order to reduce risk of enterprise security experts’ mobile endpoints, and ultimately their entire organisation.
Why this needs to be highlighted
With the challenge of securing the modern workplace in mind, this webinar discusses the history of Pegasus, from its beginnings to its present forms; the impact of Pegasus and a number of high-risk mobile apps impacting organisations all across the world. The talk included practical recommendations on how you can protect yourself against mobile dangers and zero-day attacks.
Spyware sold to governments by NSO Group has been discovered on thousands of mobiles worldwide. The targets often include NGOs,, human rights and democracy advocates, government officials, and enemies of a particular state. This means of targeting individuals for political reasons has driven Amnesty International’s efforts, as well as those of many journalists at Forbidden Stories and Citizen Lab.
How can we prevent this?
What can be done to avoid this from happening? What can we do to ensure transparency and reparation? It’s encouraging that both South Africa and Germany have recently banned dragnet communications surveillance, in part because there was no way to secure journalists’ and lawyers’ crucial private communications.
In an era where remote working has become the norm and isn’t going away anytime soon, mobile security should be at the top of every organisation’s cybersecurity priority list. Many of the businesses and organisations with which Salt Communications collaborates have seen an increase in mobile usage for communications and day-to-day operations – increasing the need for secure communications. Frequently, businesses will consider establishing a mobile security policy that spells out what users should and should not do when using their mobile devices. MDM/UEM systems have been used by other companies to lock down devices and add an extra layer of security to company-issued devices that employees use.
Stopping the use of consumer apps for business communications – while it may be tempting to continue using consumer messaging apps to communicate with clients and business contacts, you may be jeopardising your company’s security. It is a perfect opportunity for the likes of Pegasus, with an estimated daily activity of 55 billion communications, 4.5 billion photographs, and 1 billion videos shared and transferred and where all users are part of a global directory, automatically making themselves available to an attack by an unknown adversary.
As a secure communications platform we feel it is our duty to educate organisations on how to best protect themselves. If we want to live in a world where we all have secure communications, we need robust security from start to finish. Only then will our journalists, human rights defenders, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) be allowed to do their jobs without fear of being traced just for using a mobile device.
Members of the Security Institute will be able to view the recording of this webinar within their profile.
About The Security Institute:
The Security Institute is the UK’s largest professional membership body for security professionals, with over 4,100 members to date. Since 2000 they have been working to promote the highest possible standards of integrity and professional competence in the business of security.
About Salt Communications:
Salt Communications is a multi-award winning cyber security company providing a fully enterprise-managed software solution giving absolute privacy in mobile communications. It is easy to deploy and uses multi-layered encryption techniques to meet the highest of security standards. Salt Communications offers ‘Peace of Mind’ for Organisations who value their privacy, by giving them complete control and secure communications, to protect their trusted relationships and stay safe. Salt Communications is headquartered in Belfast, N. Ireland, for more information visit Salt Communications.
