Predator Spyware Evades iOS Privacy Protections To Attack iPhone Owners

iOS users may already be aware of the commercial spyware dubbed Predator, but may not know exactly what it's capable. Fortunately, malware researchers Nir Avraham and Hu Ke have published a detailed write-up on how the Predator spyware works, including how "a single hook defeats both camera and microphone indicators simultaneously." The Predator spyware contains a helper module with 4 distinct modules: HiddenDot, Voip, KeyLogger, and CameraEnabler. Working together, all four modules of Predator can enable full surveillance of a compromised iPhone without giving away any apparent "tells" to the end user that something is wrong. Since it's a much more thorough, extreme version of spyware compared to previous exploits, which were either limited in scale or required direct physical access to the device, a breakdown like this is essential information for future patching efforts.

As for the single hook that defeats indicators simultaneously, Predator's code hook ...