Spyware maker NSO Group used real phone location data on thousands of unsuspecting people when it demonstrated its new COVID-19 contact-tracing system to governments and journalists, researchers have concluded. From a report: NSO, a private intelligence company best known for developing and selling governments access to its Pegasus spyware, went on the charm offensive earlier this year to pitch its contact-tracing…
Tag: NSO Group
WhatsApp: Israeli Firm ‘Deeply Involved’ In Hacking Our Users
WhatsApp has alleged in new court filings that an Israeli spyware company used US-based servers and was “deeply involved” in carrying out mobile phone hacks of 1,400 WhatsApp users, including senior government officials, journalists, and human rights activists. The Guardian reports: The new claims about NSO Group allege that the Israeli company bears responsibility in serious human rights violations, including the…
Facebook Accuses NSO Group of Using US Servers for Spying
Facebook has accused the Israeli surveillance technology company NSO Group of using servers located in the U.S. to infect hundreds of smartphones with spyware. From a report: The allegation comes as part of a lawsuit that Facebook initiated last year accusing the NSO Group of using WhatsApp accounts to hack into the phones. Facebook owns the popular messaging app. In a…
Facebook Wanted NSO Spyware To Monitor Users, NSO CEO Claims
Facebook representatives approached controversial surveillance vendor NSO Group to try and buy a tool that could help Facebook better monitor a subset of its users, according to an extraordinary court filing from NSO in an ongoing lawsuit. From a report: Facebook is currently suing NSO for how the hacking firm leveraged a vulnerability in WhatsApp to help governments hack users. NSO…
UK To Host Spyware Firm Accused of Aiding Human Rights Abuses
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The British government is helping a controversial Israeli spyware company to market its surveillance technologies at a secretive trade fair visited by repressive regimes, the Guardian can reveal. The government will host the NSO Group, which sells technology that has allegedly been used by autocratic regimes to spy on the private messages…
FBI Probes Use of Israeli Firm’s Spyware In Personal and Government Hacks
nickwinlund77 shares a report from Reuters: The FBI is investigating the role of Israeli spyware vendor NSO Group Technologies in possible hacks on American residents and companies as well as suspected intelligence gathering on governments, according to four people familiar with the inquiry. The probe was underway by 2017, when Federal Bureau of Investigation officials were trying to learn whether NSO…
‘Police Tracked a Terror Suspect on WhatsApp — Until His Phone Went Dark After a Warning From Facebook’
“A team of European law-enforcement officials was hot on the trail of a potential terror plot in October, fearing an attack during Christmas season, when their keyhole into a suspect’s phone went dark,” reports the Wall Street Journal: WhatsApp, Facebook Inc.’s popular messaging tool, had just notified about 1,400 users — among them the suspected terrorist — that their phones had…
Facebook Permanently Deletes the Accounts of NSO Workers
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A day after Facebook-owned WhatsApp sued NSO Group, the social media platform has permanently deleted the accounts of employees who work at the Israel-based spyware maker, according to message boards and a security researcher who spoke to one worker. “Your account has been deleted for not following our terms,” said a message…
Israeli Spyware Firm NSO Group is Wildly Profitable Despite Concerns Over Misuse of its Technology, Leaked Financials Show
An anonymous reader shares a report: The secretive Israeli spyware company NSO Group gained notoriety following allegations that its hacking tool Pegasus was used by governments like Saudi Arabia and Mexico to track dissidents and journalists. A few months later, the company was acquired for $1 billion by its cofounders Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie alongside the private equity firm Novalpina…
NSO Spyware ‘Targets Big Tech Cloud Services’
The Israeli company whose spyware hacked WhatsApp has told buyers its technology can surreptitiously scrape all of an individual’s data from the servers of Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, Financial Times reported on Friday. [Editor’s note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source] From the report: NSO Group’s flagship smartphone malware, nicknamed Pegasus, has for years been used by spy…