A bill that would allow police in France to spy on suspects by remotely activating cameras, microphone including GPS of their phones has been passed.
From the Guardian article somebody else linked:
One of the most significant challenges that Pegasus presents to journalists and human rights defenders is the fact that the software exploits undiscovered vulnerabilities, meaning even the most security-conscious mobile phone user cannot prevent an attack.
This isn’t even wrong. What is the attack vector? They send a magic message that 0wns Signal, and then cleans up? At scale? With nobody noticing? This doesn’t happen.
A few comments, they don’t need to have a Signal vulnerability, just an OS vulnerability since that would allow access to decrypted Signal messages. In the past, there have been zero click SMS and iMessage vulnerabilities. There have also been web vulnerabilities.
The attacks are not sent at scale to avoid detection. They are used on specific dissidents and journalists.
You need to exploit an OS vulnerability or use suitable baseband processor as a backdoor, facilitated by the cellular operator. To exploit the OS or an a service on it you need a network connection. You can’t inject through an ad if there is no browser or email if there is no client.
Yes, you can spearphish but this can’t mass-target French mobile users as the article seems to claim. France isn’t North Korea, not just yet.
