What Pegasus actually does is relatively simple: Once a smartphone is infected with Pegasus, the application provides direct access, remotely and discreetly, to the entirety of your smartphone.
Everything from text messages to using your smartphone's camera and microphone are up for grabs. The spyware was created by an Israeli company, the NSO Group, and it's nothing new.
Pegasus was first discovered in 2016 when a man in the United Arab Emirates named Ahmed Mansoor was targeted with "suspicious text messages," Scott-Railton said.
"Those text messages actually came bearing some suspicious links," he said. "We thought they looked pretty dicey, so my colleague Bill [Marczak] borrowed a colleague's iPhone, clicked on the links, and was able to successfully get the phone infected with what was then a mystery piece of spyware."
That "mystery" spyware was actually Pegasus, and Mansoor was being targeted — likely due to his work as a human rights advocate. Mansoor is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence in the UAE for publicly criticizing the government.