How to Know If Your IPhone or IPad Is Infected With Pegasus Spyware
It is usually not easy to install spyware on smartphones and tablets, especially on iPhone or iPad. But Pegasus spyware is an exception. In July 2021, researchers discovered that Pegasus had infected the smartphones of some journalists, activists and politicians.
What makes Pegasus so deadly is that the user doesn’t need to do anything to activate it. In some cases, installing spyware is as simple as receiving a message, and once installed, it gives the hacker full access to the device and its data.
Pegasus is of course targeted spyware, and Apple likely (if unofficially) included the patch in iOS 14.7.1 update .
But if you’re wondering if Pegasus spyware is currently running on your iPhone or iPad, there is now an easy way to find out. iMazing , a third-party iPhone and iPad management tool, includes spyware detection for free in version 2.14 of the software.
Once you’ve downloaded iMazing on your Mac or PC, connect your iPhone or iPad and unlock your device. Select your device in the iMazing app and select the ” Detect Spyware ” option.
Then follow the instructions of the wizard by clicking Next three times to download the required data and agree to the terms and conditions. Finally, click the Start Analysis button to start the process.
The iMazing app will download the data, back up your iPhone or iPad, and start analyzing your device for spyware. This may take some time – during testing, the backup process took about 30 minutes. Once the backup is complete, iMazing will ask you to enter your backup encryption password (if you configured one) and get started.
iMazing will scan the data on your iPhone or iPad, which can take 5-10 minutes. Once the analysis is complete, iMazing will show you the results in an easy-to-read form. For example, after scanning, we received nine alerts, but the scan showed no signs of malware or spyware infection.
If your device is infected, the first step is not to panic. This could be a false positive – just in case, run the test again. You can also send the report to iMazing Customer Support for further analysis. And if you do get a positive result, and especially if you or your family members are politically active that could put you at risk in your country, iMazing advises you to immediately turn off your device and remove your SIM card. Then you can start eradicating the infection – whether it’s restoring from an older backup (and analyzing it to make sure it’s not infected either) or wiping all your data from the device and starting from scratch.