Apple, the company that makes the iPhone mobile phone, has offered its users an emergency update of its software to correct a vulnerability in its system, which according to researchers could be used by cyber hackers to directly intervene in phones and other devices of this type. Mark.

Researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab said in a statement Monday that the security issue had been exploited by hackers from the NSO Group, an Israeli cybersecurity company, to hack into a Saudi activist's iPhone.

The flaw affected all of Apple's operating systems, according to the researchers, including its phones, tablets and computers.

[The IPhone 13 could work without network service | Mr Tech]

Unlike other hacking tools, the vulnerability in the system exploited by this group allowed them to infect the Saudi activist's phone without the user having to do anything, such as click on a link or download a file.

“It is absolutely chilling,” said John Scott-Railton, one of the main researchers at Citizen Lab, which published a report on the matter on Monday, after alerting the company to the flaw.

In addition, the expert warned that it is very unlikely that victims realize that their devices have been the target of a cyberattack.

"The user sees crickets while his iPhone is silently being exploited," Scott-Railton said. "Someone sends you a GIF that isn't, and then you're in trouble. That's it. You don't see anything," he specified.

NSO Group is a computer company that creates security and hacking software that it rents to governments to spy on computers and phones. The company has insisted that its main product, Pegasus software, is a vital tool for combating terrorist cells and criminal groups, which it rents to governments for use in accordance with their own laws. It has also ensured that it is not used against US citizens and that it revokes the license of countries that misuse its products.

But Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity research center at the University of Toronto, has found multiple instances in which Pegasus has been used against journalists in Mexico and political dissidents in Saudi Arabia, including associates of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. who was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

A spokesman for NSO Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment from our sister network NBC News.

Apple also did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News, but the company said in notes accompanying its software update that the vulnerability "may have been actively exploited" by NSO.

For his part, Scott-Railton was confident that the new update to the iOS and Mac OS operating system will prevent users from being compromised in this way.

“This will prevent this vulnerability from being exploited to infect users. But we know that NSO is always trying to find other ways to tap into phones and they may turn to something else."

With information from NBC News and The Associated Press.