You need to update your iPhone right this second

You need to update your iPhone right this second

Apple iPhone owners have been urged to update their devices after security researchers discovered a scary new virus which can hack phones in seconds.

The spyware was discovered on a phone used by a human rights lawyer and has been dubbed a “one tap” attack because it only requires victims to click on one link to become infected.

Ahmed Mansoor, a lawyer in the United Arab Emirates, became suspicious when he received a text which promised to expose “secrets” about people undergoing torture in the repressive Islamic State.

“Once infected, Mansoor’s phone would have become a digital spy in his pocket, capable of employing his iPhone’s camera and microphone to snoop on activity in the vicinity of the device, recording his WhatsApp and Viber calls, logging messages sent in mobile chat apps, and tracking his movements,” said Citizen Lab, one of two firms which analyzed Mansoor’s phone.

“We are not aware of any previous instance of an iPhone remote jailbreak used in the wild as part of a targeted attack campaign, making this a rare find.”

It is believed the weaponized spyware was designed by a shadowy Israeli “cyber arms dealer.”

Mobile security company Lookout, which also analyzed the virus, said this was a world first for an attack of this kind.

Vice president of research Mike Murray said the hack was essentially a remote jailbreak — the process of removing software restrictions imposed by iOS.

“We realized that we were looking at something that no one had ever seen in the wild before,” he told Motherboard.

“Literally, a click on a link to jailbreak an iPhone in one step. [It is] one of the most sophisticated pieces of cyber espionage software we’ve ever seen.”

Murray said the malware, codenamed Pegasus, gave attackers full control of the smartphone.

“It basically steals all the information on your phone, it intercepts every call, it intercepts every text message, it steals all the emails, the contacts, the FaceTime calls,” he said.

“It also basically backdoors every communications mechanism you have on the phone.”

“It steals all the information in the Gmail app, all the Facebook messages, all the Facebook information, your Facebook contacts, everything from Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat, Telegram — you name it.”

Citizen Lab researcher Bill Marczak said breaking down the malicious program was compared to “defusing a bomb.”

“It is amazing the level they’ve gone through to avoid detection,” he said. “They have a hair-trigger self-destruct.”