Technical Details

Answer 1

Pegasus for Android offers a wide array of spy functions, including:

Keylogging Screenshot capture Live audio and video capture Remote control of the malware via SMS Messaging data exfiltration from common applications including WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, Viber, Kakao, Gmail, Android’s Native Browser and Chrome, Android’s Native email Browser history exfiltration Email exfiltration from Android’s native email client Contacts and text message exfiltration Disabling system updates The iOS version of Pegasus took hold of targeted devices by exploiting a trio of critical security vulnerabilities unknown to Apple and most other security researchers. All that was required for an iPhone to be infected was that it opened a booby-trapped website. (Apple patched the vulnerabilities as soon as researchers from Citizen Lab and Lookout announced their discovery.) If the attempted iOS jailbreak was unsuccessful, Pegasus would abort all attempts to infect the iPhone.

Pegasus for Android, by contrast, doesn’t rely on zero-day security bugs to root target devices and infect them. Instead, it uses a well-known rooting technique called Framaroot to override security safeguards built into the Android OS. In the event the rooting doesn’t work, the espionage app seeks permissions required to exfiltrate data. As a result, Pegasus for Android is easier to deploy and has additional opportunities to take hold if the first attempt fails.