Pegasus Spyware is Showing Up on Corporate Execs’ Cell Phones

According to an article by Suzanne Smalley in The Record, Pegasus spyware has been detected in the cell phones of corporate executives in several industries, including real estate, logistics, and finance.

The Israeli NSO Group, which makes Pegasus, has claimed it is sold exclusively to governments to target criminals and terrorists.

The Record’s report is based on information from the security company iVerify, which provides users with an app that enables them to scan their phones once a month for one dollar. The scan is said to detect the presence of advanced commercial spyware, from which it creates a diagnostic file that iVerify will assess.

The number of reported infected phones among iVerify corporate clients was eleven out of 18,000 devices tested in December last year. In May 2024, when iVerify first began offering the spyware testing service, a study found seven spyware infections out of 3,000 phones tested. 

“The world remains totally unprepared to deal with this from a security perspective,” says iVerify co-founder and former National Security Agency analyst Rocky Cole, who was interviewed for the article. “This stuff is way more prevalent than people think.” 

 The article notes that business executives are now proving to be vulnerable, including individuals with access to proprietary plans and financial data, as well as those who frequently communicate with other influential leaders in the private sector. These leaders engage in sensitive work out of the public eye, including deals that have the potential to impact financial markets. 

Although the reported iVerify numbers on which this article is based include results only for phones infected with Pegasus spyware, the iVerify app also tests for a number of other spyware products.