Collaborate Disseminate
More zero-day exploits coming up for sale by NSO Group and others is democratizing the attack vector and placing them within reach of less sophisticated attackers. Continue reading A Brisk Private Trade in Zero-Days Widens Their Use
Two Facebook representatives approached NSO Group in 2017 asking to purchase rights to use its surveillance software to monitor its users, according to court documents filed this week by the Israeli-owned surveillance software company in an ongoing lawsuit with Facebook-owned WhatsApp. The Facebook representatives specifically told NSO Group they wanted to monitor users on Apple devices, NSO Group CEO Shalev Hulio said, according to court documents obtained by CyberScoop. NSO Group and WhatsApp are currently battling it out in court after Facebook sued NSO Group for allegedly targeting thousands of WhatsApp users with its spyware. At the time, Facebook was working to use a VPN product, Onavo Protect, to track users’ web traffic. According to Shalev, Facebook was not satisfied with the results for users on Apple devices and wanted to use NSO Group’s signature Pegasus spyware as a way to monitor Facebook users better. “The Facebook representatives stated that Facebook […]
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The Israeli surveillance software firm accused of exploiting WhatsApp to run surveillance operations against users has asked the court for a 120-day extension to reply to WhatsApp’s lawsuit. NSO Group alleges that Facebook, WhatsApp’s parent company, lied in a recent procedural filing about whether it had properly served NSO Group under The Hague Convention, according to court documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California obtained by CyberScoop. “Facebook lied to the court in its February 27 application for default, saying that service was complete,” NSO Group said in a statement shared with CyberScoop. “In fact, Facebook and its lawyers had been told two days earlier (February 25) by the Government of Israel that service under the Hague Convention was not complete — a fact Facebook concealed from the court.” It’s the latest logistics squabble in the case, which alleges NSO Group’s custom malware was […]
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Continue reading NSO Group works to explain no-show in court for WhatsApp suit, plots defense
An Israeli court has ordered Facebook to unblock the account of an employee of NSO Group after a complaint from the software surveillance vendor, according to officials at both companies. It is the latest twist in a broader, high-stakes legal battle between Facebook and NSO Group, an Israeli company that sells hacking tools to governments. In a lawsuit last year, Facebook accused NSO Group, through its custom malware, of being complicit in a hack last year of 1,400 mobile devices running WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging platform. NSO Group has denied the allegations. NSO Group employees had filed a petition in November asking an Israeli court to lift a block that Facebook had placed on their accounts. The NSO Group personnel accused Facebook of retaliating against them after Facebook‘s suit, which alleged that NSO Group had violated U.S. anti-hacking laws. Facebook said disabling certain NSO Group accounts was warranted for security reasons. A Facebook spokesperson said Tuesday the company […]
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Continue reading Facebook must unblock NSO Group employee’s account, Israeli court rules
With “medium to high confidence,” forensic investigators have concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was directly involved in hacking into Jeff Bezos’ phone in 2018, according to a U.N. report released Wednesday. The hack, which allowed “intrusive surveillance” of Bezos according to the U.N., came after bin Salman and the Amazon founder met at a dinner in April 2018 while the crown prince was touring the U.S. The Guardian first reported the alleged surveillance of Bezos on Tuesday. Following an exchange of WhatsApp messages, bin Salman sent a malicious and encrypted file to Bezos, which led to the exfiltration of large amounts of data, according to the report. The interaction took place months before the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, which American intelligence has assessed to have been carried out under orders from bin Salman. Bezos also owns the Washington Post. Soon after meeting bin Salman — also known as MBS […]
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Amnesty International is urging an Israeli court to restrict the business of NSO Group, a spyware vendor accused of helping repressive governments spy on dissidents and journalists. The U.K.-based human rights group on Tuesday published a statement encouraging Tel Aviv’s District Court to revoke NSO Group’s export license, a move that would effectively prohibit the company from providing foreign clients with its technology. NSO Group sells Pegasus, hacking software which allows clients to monitor targets’ emails, text messages, collect passwords and gather other valuable personal information. Government critics and journalists in Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been targeted with Pegasus, Amnesty said. “The best way to stop NSO’s powerful spyware products reaching repressive governments is to revoke the company’s export license, and that is exactly what this legal case seeks to do,” Danna Ingleton, deputy director of Amnesty Tech, said in a statement Tuesday. NSO Group, founded […]
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Continue reading Amnesty suit asking Israel to revoke NSO Group’s license heads to court
Cybercrime increasingly went mobile in 2019, with everything from Apple iPhone jailbreaks and rogue Android apps to 5G and mobile-first phishing dominating the news coverage. Here are Threatpost’s Top 10 mobile security stories of 2019. Continue reading Top Mobile Security Stories of 2019
Firm defends controversial business offerings, claims it should be considered a force of good. Continue reading NSO Group President Defends Controversial Tactics
The plot has thickened in a legal battle between social media giant Facebook and NSO Group, a surveillance software vendor accused of abetting human rights abuses. After Facebook sued the Israeli company last month for allegedly violating a federal anti-hacking law, NSO Group employees have filed their own motion in Israeli court, claiming that Facebook unfairly blocked their personal accounts in retaliation. The petition from several NSO Group employees asks the court to order Facebook to lift a block on their Facebook and Instagram accounts, arguing that Facebook cut access to their accounts without notice and in violation of the company’s policies. The motion is a smaller-scale response to Facebook’s landmark lawsuit against NSO Group. The suit, brought in a federal court in California, alleges that the vendor violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act when NSO’s custom malware was deployed on some 1,400 mobile devices with WhatsApp installed during […]
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Continue reading NSO employees take Facebook to Israeli court to unblock accounts
You’re listening to the Shared Security Podcast, exploring the trust you put in people, apps, and technology…with your host, Tom Eston. In episode 93 for November 4th 2019: The WhatsApp NSO group lawsuit plus details on Facebook’s pre… Continue reading WhatsApp’s NSO Group Lawsuit, This Week in Data Breaches, Office 365 Voicemail Phishing