Recently, another espionage scandal broke out, when journalists managed to find out that the special services of a number of countries monitor politicians and influential people with the help of spy software of the Israeli company NSO. We are talking about the Pegasus software, which has already appeared in the case of monitoring journalists of the Al-Jazeera TV channel.
Then the scandal was hushed up, but this time the story received a great response. French President Emmanuel Macron even changed his smartphone and phone number. He also demanded an explanation from Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett about NSO's activities, and wondered if Israel was taking any steps to tighten control over the cybersecurity company.
The founder of Telegram, Pavlo Durov, also joined the discussion on the topic of smartphone hacking, and lately he has been commenting on these issues more and more often. He often blames Apple, which he considers practically the greatest evil. But this time he also blames Google.
According to Durova, he has been monitored by the NGO Pegasus spyware since 2018, but that doesn't worry him. As they say, honest people have nothing to hide and they will not find important information.
But such means of surveillance are used against much more powerful and famous people. And the fact that this is possible is the fault of Apple and Google, who created dangerous software products, and it became "a huge problem for humanity."
By order of the special services, Apple and Google deliberately implement backdoors in iOS and Android
"That's why I invite the governments of the world to start acting against the duopoly of Apple and Google in the smartphone market, to force them to open their ecosystems and create conditions for better competition," Pavlo Durov said. But officials are hesitant, and he hopes the news that they themselves may have been the target of surveillance will prompt them to change their minds.
Remember that the founder of Telegram has previously said that Apple and Google are part of a global system of surveillance of people. Companies deliberately introduce backdoors into their operating systems, disguising them as security flaws that allow intelligence agencies to access information on any smartphone in the world.
According to Pavel Durov, the problem is that anyone can use such surveillance tools. Any iPhone and Android smartphone can be hacked not only by American intelligence services; as well as any other organization. He is sure that “there is no way to protect your device from this. It doesn't matter what apps you use because the system is broken at a deeper level."
In fact, Pavlo Durov accused Apple and Google of the fact that smartphones can be hacked. And all because they deliberately build jailbreaks into backdoors in iOS and Android and do it at the behest of special services.
There is a possibility that he is right. NSO Group has been in business since 2011 and has been successfully selling its surveillance products for ten years. This means that Android and iOS have fertile ground for smartphone hacking.
