nso group

Named for the winged horse of Greek mythology and often sent by text message, Pegasus can burrow into your phone without your knowledge or even your click, hiding for days or weeks inside, surreptitiously recording everything—messages, photos, encrypted chats, and video and audio—in real-time. Exactly where your data is going often remains a mystery, lost in a tangle of servers. But the deadly impacts of Pegasus and other cyberweapons—wielded by governments from Spain to Saudi Arabia against human rights defenders,…

Google is calling on the government to provide more action when it comes to combatting spyware sales and the misuse of surveillance software, according to a new report. “The harm is not hypothetical,” Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) said Tuesday in its report, which is titled “Buying Spying,” adding that “spyware vendors point to their tools’ legitimate use in law enforcement and counterterrorism.” “However, spyware deployed against journalists, human rights defenders, dissidents, and opposition pay…

India's government has recently targeted high-profile journalists with Pegasus spyware, Amnesty International and The Washington Post said in a joint investigation published Thursday.Created by Israeli firm NSO Group and sold to governments around the world, Pegasus software can be used to access a phone's messages and emails, peruse photos, eavesdrop on calls, track locations, and even film the owner with the camera. Amnesty said journalists Siddharth Varadarajan of The Wire and Anand Mangnale of The Organized Crime and…

The controversial Israeli spyware maker NSO Group hints Israel has been searching for hostages using Pegasus, its notorious spyware platform linked to rampant human rights abuses. The claim comes as the tech firm mounts a renewed push to get its name off of a U.S. government blacklist.Even after an agreement reached between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday to release 50 hostages, there are still more than 180 hostages who remain—which, if NSO’s suggestions are true, would point to a key role for Pegasus in the Israel-Hamas…

The U.S. Commerce Department added two Europe-based spyware companies to its technology export blacklist on Tuesday for developing surveillance tools deemed to have threatened U.S. national security as well as the privacy and integrity of individuals and organizations worldwide.Such tools are regularly used for political repression and other human rights abuses, including for spying on journalists and intimidating political dissidents. The sanctioned companies are in Greece-based Intellexa S.A., Hungary-based Cytrox and…

The U.S. government placed two Israeli spyware companies on a blacklist this week, all but totally cutting them off from business opportunities with American firms. The move is yet another attempt by the Biden administration to clean up the ethically bankrupt spyware industry before it spins totally out of control.Sam Bankman-Fried Using a VPN, McDonald’s AI Drive Thru Fails, Buzzfeed AI Quizzes Suck | Editor PicksIntellexa and Cytrox, which have both been described as “Israeli-controlled,” are known for selling shady…

The widow of Jamal Khashoggi—a Saudi journalist brutally executed by intelligence agents for writing critically about the regime—is suing the NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance company allegedly responsible for creating malicious spyware surreptitiously installed on her and her late husband’s devices. Hanan Elatr believes communications gleaned from her device without her knowledge for nearly a year led to her husband’s detention and eventual grisly dismemberment by bone sawat the hands of Saudi assassins. Now, more than…

Jeb Bush, former Florida governor, Bush family scion, and flop presidential candidate, once considered helping to sell NSO Group spyware to U.S. federal law enforcement agencies. Yvette Nicole Brown on the Frog and Toad Series and Voice ActingBush’s private equity firm, Finback Investment Partners, mulled buying a 5 percent stake in a holding company that was being used to sell NSO’s surveillance products inside the U.S., the Financial Times reported. That holding company, Gideon Cyber Systems, is primarily owned by…

British officials are sounding the alarm over the widespread abuse of surveillance software and hackers-for-hire, saying that thousands of people were being targeted each year by an industry they described as posing an increasingly unpredictable threat.Britain's National Cybersecurity Centre (NCSC), part of its GCHQ eavesdropping spy agency, said in a report published on Wednesday that the mercenary hacking market was offering products that were on par with government hacking groups."There is another new front opening, as…

Israeli digital surveillance for hire giant NSO Group reportedly deployed at least three newattacks last year targeting human rights workers and other members of civil society spread out around the world using Apple devices. All of those “zero-click” exploits, according to new research from The Citizen Lab, could tap NSO into a victim’s device without them ever having to click a dirty link or any interaction by the target. Though the new attacks highlight NSO’s continued effort to crack Apple products, there is a silver…