What Is Pegasus Spyware?
What is the Pegasus spyware? Pegasus spyware is an infamous malware software, highly sophisticated, installed on most phone devices, which is designed by the Israeli cyber-arms company called NSO Group.
This kind of spyware has been widely used by governments around the world to perform a series of research about cyber-espionage to surveil journalists, lawyers, political dissidents, and human rights activists.
With its wild circulation, many phone users fall into one of the victims. Technically sophisticated and dangerous, Pegasus malware brings many troubles to victims, such as arrests, identity theft, financial loss, and basic human rights infringement, etc. More crimes can be conducted via that, which depends on the attacker’s goals.
Recently, we found some users are complaining that they receive a junk email that tells them the Pegasus spyware has been installed on computers and smartphones, allowing hackers to monitor the activity of device owners and exhort them to pay money for relief.
Once I receive confirmation of the transaction, I will реrmanently delete all videos compromising you, uninstаll Pegasus from all of your devices, and disappear from your life. You can be sure – my benefit is only money. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be writing to you, but destroy your life without a word in a second.
I’ll be notified when you open my email, and from that moment you have exactly 48 hours to send the money. If cryptocurrencies are unchartered waters for you, don’t worry, it’s very simple. Just google “crypto exchange” or "buy Litecoin" and then it will be no harder than buying some useless stuff on Amazon.https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/i-received-this-in-my-junk-emailcan-i-ignore-it/132dc435-4f94-4c4e-a812-f4f38f7c6d4c
You may find the spam comes from your own email address, which can convince you to believe the email account has been totally under their control and then trick you into paying a ridiculous sum for something that’s entirely false.
So, what should you do when you receive this kind of message? First of all, do not perform the requirements as they want. Since there are many victims who receive this kind of blackmail, you can report this notification to the official and disconnect the Internet connection to avoid further infection. Ignoring and deleting the email is a better choice to do.
It may seem to be easy to get rid of spam on PCs but that is not the only thing the Pegasus spyware can do. Most victims are phone users and the Pegasus virus can infiltrate your device via SMS, WhatsApp, iMessage, active camera and microphone, etc.
The most noticeable is that the malware can start working and get activated even without clicking. On top of that, if the user finds something suspicious and deletes the message – the spyware will still infect the device. So, as the instance we have provided, even though you have deleted the blackmail email, you still need to check if your device has any suspicious signs.
How to tell if your device has been installed with the Pegasus spyware? Some signs can indicate a potential issue, but they are far from conclusive.
- Battery draining so fast
- Overheating
- Usual device glitches and bus
- Slowing down performance
- Unexplained data usage
- Casual sudden shut-down and crashes
- Suspicious messages and emails
- Etc.
How to Protect Your Device against Pegasus Spyware?
Now, how to protect your device from the Pegasus spyware? Actually, since the malware has highly sophisticated techniques and zero-click exploit, it is hard to detect the presence via some antivirus and most usual anti-malware can’t remove this danger. Fortunately, some of the software developed dedicatedly for the Pegasus malware is worth trying.
Besides, you can clear your browser cookies and cache and remove those strange extensions. Alternatively, you can directly reset your browser.
To clear browser cache and cookies, you can enter the Settings page of Chrome and choose Privacy and security > Delete browsing data. Choose the time range and check the options to delete data.
Apart from that, you can also apply some measures to avoid being infected with spyware and minimize the loss.
- Don’t open links or download attachments contained in unknown or unsolicited messages.
- Don’t download anything from unknown websites.
- Keep your device and software up to date.
- Disable iMessage and Facetime if you are an iOS user.
- Use real-time virus protection.
- Avoid software bundles.
- Regularly check for your backups.
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Bottom Line
This post is helpful to have a better understanding of the Pegasus spyware and find a way to protect your device from this threat. Hope the above contents can fix your problem.