The NSO Group attracted worldwide attention with its Pegasus malware. Now the Israeli government is also getting involved. The spy company reacts surprisingly.
The news went rapidly around the world: With the Pegasus spy software, customers of the NSO Group could crack smartphones around the globe and access the most intimate data such as chats, the camera or the microphone without the knowledge of the owner. Among the victims: politicians, journalists and activists. Now the Israeli judiciary is also investigating the case.
This was confirmed by the country’s Ministry of Defense. Accordingly, representatives of various government agencies visited the NSO Group’s offices on Wednesday to investigate the allegations made against the company. Exactly which authorities are involved was not mentioned. According to Israeli media reports, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the Mossad secret service and the military secret service are also dealing with the incident.
NSO Group reacts surprisingly
The visit by the authorities has meanwhile also been confirmed by the NSO Group itself – and surprisingly commented. Shalev Hulio, the company’s CEO, was even grateful to the “MIT Technology Review”. “I think it’s very good that you are looking into it,” he said. “Then the truth will come out: the list never existed and it has nothing to do with NSO.” Instead of a search, the company spoke of a “visit” or an “inspection” by the authorities.
The list mentioned is one of the core allegations against the company. With the help of Amnesty International, journalists identified 50,000 phone numbers on the document assigned to the NSO Group, which customers of the company have reportedly given for surveillance since 2016. In addition to top politicians, the list also included numerous journalists and activists. At least two of the listed people have now been violently killed, one of them is the Saudi journalist and US citizen Jamal Kashoggi, whose brutal murder made headlines. Amnesty maintains that the list can be clearly assigned to the NSO Group.
It is not officially known why the Israeli authorities are dealing with the case and which allegations have been investigated in detail. The international upheavals in relation to the company’s home country are very likely to play a role. Even in its close ally, the United States, Congressmen of the ruling Democrats called for an investigation into the allegations and action against the NSO Group.
Diplomatic faults
Relations with France in particular have suffered considerably. French President Emmanuel Macron is one of the people on the list, and the state reacted sourly to the revelations. Now the Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz tried to smooth things over at a meeting with his French counterpart Florence Parly. “Israel is examining the allegations with the utmost seriousness,” said Gantz Parly during a visit to Paris, during which, among other things, the two countries’ findings on the espionage affair are to be exchanged, “Reuters” reported.
In the event of abuse, they are also prepared to use the NSO Group’s ability to simply switch off the software for the customer who violates the rules, said a spokesman for the agency’s Israeli Defense Ministry.
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