"Gibson, who until recently built surveillance technologies for Western government hacking tools maker Trenchant, may be the first documented case of someone who builds exploits and spyware being themselves targeted with spyware. "What the hell is going on? I really didn't know what to think of it," said Gibson, adding that he turned off his phone and put it away on that day, March 5. "I went immediately to buy a new phone. I called my dad. It was a mess. It was a huge mess.""
"At Trenchant, Gibson worked on developing iOS zero-days, meaning findingvulnerabilities and developing tools capable of exploiting them that are not known to the vendor who makes the affected hardware or software, such as Apple. "I have mixed feelings of how pathetic this is, and then extreme fear because once things hit this level, you never know what's going to happen," he told TechCrunch. But the ex-Trenchant employee may not be the only exploit developer targeted with spyware. According to three sources who have direct knowledge of these cases, there have been other spyware and exploit developers in the last few months who have received notifications from Apple alerting them that they were targeted with spyware. Apple did not respond to a request for comment from TechCrunch."
A former developer who built surveillance technologies for Trenchant received an Apple notification indicating a targeted mercenary spyware attack against his iPhone. The notification caused panic and immediate precautionary actions, including turning off the device and buying a new phone. The developer previously worked on iOS zero-days—vulnerabilities unknown to the vendor—used to create exploits and spyware. Multiple sources report other spyware and exploit developers have received similar Apple alerts in recent months. Apple did not respond to a request for comment. The incident underscores risks from the proliferation of zero-days and mercenary spyware.
Read at TechCrunch
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