Category Archives: NSO Group

Research shows human rights activists in India were targeted with spyware, including NSO’s Pegasus

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Human rights activists in India were targeted by a coordinated spyware campaign from January to October of 2019, according to research published Monday by Amnesty International and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. Nine activists in total were targeted, eight of which have been calling for the release of 11 people jailed during protests related to the violent uprising in Bhima Koregaon, India in 2018. The targets were sent spearphishing emails with malicious links and files that, if clicked, would infect the victims’ computers with spyware capable of tracking their communications. Three of the activists were targeted by Pegasus, a notorious spyware program developed by Israeli surveillance software firm NSO Group, according to Amnesty and Citizen Lab. Human rights defenders in India have been victimized by spyware in the past. But the research shows that surveillance software has been leveraged multiple times against activists linked to the Bhima Koregaon activists. One […]

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Congress wants to know who is using spyware against the US

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A 2021 intelligence funding draft bill mandates a report on surveillance vendors and which countries or other actors are using spyware. Continue reading Congress wants to know who is using spyware against the US→

Rod Rosenstein is working with NSO Group, the Israeli firm accused of spying on dissidents

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Rod Rosenstein, a former deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice, has been providing counsel on cybersecurity and national security to NSO Group, the Israeli software surveillance firm accused of spying on human rights activists and journalists, according to court documents obtained by CyberScoop. Rosenstein’s work with NSO Group was revealed in court documents in relation to a lawsuit WhatsApp filed against the company, accusing them of surveilling over 1,000 WhatsApp users. “I have counseled NSO about cyber and national security issues and assisted the defense team” in the WhatsApp v. NSO Group case, Rosenstein said in the signed declaration. Rosenstein has been employed King & Spalding, the firm representing NSO Group, since January of this year. He previously served as deputy attorney general from 2017 through May 2019. The filing is an attempt to rebut WhatsApp’s claims that King & Spalding has a conflict of interest in the case because it has represented […]

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Former Ghana government officials sentenced to jail for doing business with NSO Group

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Three former government officials in Ghana have been sentenced to jail for purchasing spyware products from Israeli software surveillance company NSO Group. The country’s former national security coordinator, Salifu Osman, and director-general of the country’s telecommunications authority, William Tetteh Tevie, were sentenced to five years in prison, according to Ghana Business News and other local news outlets. A former board chairman of the telecommunications authority, Eugene Baffoe-Bonnie, was sentenced to six years because he allegedly made $200,000 from the deal, according to Graphic Online. The case, which has been in the country’s high court since 2017, hinged on the argument that officials had caused significant financial loss in the country due to their $4 million purchase of NSO Group’s signature Pegasus spyware. The National Communications Authority (NCA) allegedly bought the surveillance product through a reseller in order to track suspected terrorism, according to Graphic Online, which attended the court session Tuesday. It […]

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NSO Group partly disputes claim about use of U.S.-based servers in WhatsApp spy campaign

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Israeli surveillance software company NSO Group is back in court disputing WhatsApp’s claims that it used U.S.-based infrastructure to launch spyware against thousands of WhatsApp users last year. In court documents filed Thursday, NSO Group rejected Facebook-owned WhatsApp’s allegations that NSO Group used servers from a Los Angeles-based hosting provider, QuadraNet, over 700 times to target WhatsApp users. “Plaintiffs’ new claims about QuadraNet are false: NSO did not contract with QuadraNet to use its California servers,” the filing reads. NSO Group claimed in the filings that even if its spyware, Pegasus, did use QuadraNet servers, it was third-party activity. The company sells its software around the globe to intelligence and law enforcement agencies. “If Pegasus messages did pass through QuadraNet servers, they would have been sent by NSO’s customers, not NSO,” the filing states. “We repeat: NSO Group does not operate the Pegasus technology for its clients,” the spokesperson added. NSO Group CEO Shalev Hulio said […]

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Facebook claims NSO Group’s lawyers have conflict of interest in WhatsApp case

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In the ongoing legal battle between Facebook and software surveillance company NSO Group, the social media giant is trying to get NSO Group’s legal counsel dismissed because of an alleged conflict of interest. In a court filing made public this week, Facebook asked a federal judge to disqualify law firm King & Spalding from representing NSO Group because the firm previously represented Facebook-owned WhatsApp in a different sealed case that is “substantially related” to the NSO Group one. King & Spalding, an Atlanta-based firm with a range of big corporate clients, has denied there is a conflict of interest, according to the filing. It is the latest twist in a legal tussle that began in October, when Facebook sued NSO Group, alleging that the Israeli company violated a federal anti-hacking law when its malware was used to infect some 1,400 mobile devices, including those of human rights advocates. NSO Group denies the […]

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Facebook: NSO Group used U.S.-based servers in operations against WhatsApp users

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Lawyers for WhatsApp’s parent company alleged in documents filed Thursday that NSO Group, the Israeli software surveillance firm accused of spying on over a thousand WhatsApp users, has used U.S.-based servers to launch its attacks. In court documents, Facebook-owned WhatsApp claims NSO Group used a server run by Los Angeles-based hosting provider QuadraNet “more than 700 times during the attack to direct NSO’s malware to WhatsApp user devices in April and May 2019.” Additionally, NSO Group used a remote server hosted by Amazon to target WhatsApp users, WhatsApp software engineer Claudiu Gheorghe said in the filing. The filing is a blow to NSO Group’s claims that its signature product, Pegasus, isn’t capable of running operations in the United States. “That invasion of WhatsApp’s servers and users’ devices constitutes unlawful computer hacking at the heart of the [Computer Fraud and Abuse Act]’s unauthorized-access offense,” WhatsApp claims in the filing. The filing is […]

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Facebook wanted to purchase NSO Group spyware to surveil users, court documents allege

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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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