NSO Group Technologies

History

2023

Fighting for NSO Group to bring the company under U.S. control

In 2021, NSO Group became the subject of a large-scale journalistic investigation. Company representatives were accused of selling espionage ON to authoritarian governments, spying on journalists and public figures. As a result, the Presidential Administration USA Biden blacklisted NSO Group from [Entity list] companies that are prohibited from supplying [exporting] American technology. It was more an image move aimed at creating financial problems from the NSO Group in order to further purchase it, wrote the Rybar channel.

Shortly after the investigation, representatives of one of the Pentagon's main contractors, L3Harris Technologies, told their colleagues at NSO Group that they had received the blessing and support of the government and American intelligence to acquire the company, if the Pegasus source code and cache of discovered vulnerabilities were transferred to other intelligence agencies of the Anglo-Saxon intelligence community Five Eyes.

Formally, the company's entry into the Entity list imposes a ban only on export operations related to the supply of technology. But it does not apply to import operations or acquisitions. This is exactly what the representatives of L3Harris were counting on.

But other players got involved in the process. Lenders, including Credit Suisse and Senator Investment Group, recovered NSO Group's parent company in early 2023. As a result of the takeover, the owners of NSO were changed, including a private equity fund founded by Novalpina Capital, which acquired the company in the course of the transaction, valuing it at about $1 billion in 2019.

For fall 2023, Dufresne Holdings, controlled by NSO Group co-founder Omri Lavie, is listed in corporate filings as the sole shareholder of NSO Group's parent company. Representatives of this company are actively involved in the management of NSO Group. On their initiative, some employees were fired. Meanwhile, NSO Group lenders are partnering with Lavie and have agreed not to seek a debt default from NSO.

NSO Group is run directly by CEO Yaron Shohat and its creditors are currently restructuring shareholder stakes, a spokesman said.

In the fall of 2023, there is, in fact, a re-registration of assets to a new legal entity and optimization of the company, which is necessary to attract new investments and obtain clean registration documents without mentioning blacklisting. It is assumed that in any case, NSO Group, even in a new shell, will remain under the control of large banks.

US Supreme Court rejects NSO Group appeal over WhatsApp lawsuit

In January 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Meta Platforms-owned WhatsApp to proceed with a lawsuit accusing Israel's NSO Group of using an error in WhatsApp's app to install spyware to keep an eye on 1,400 people, including journalists, human rights activists and dissidents.

The judges rejected NSO Group's appeal of the lower court's decision that the suit could proceed. Representatives of the NSO Group claimed that she has immunity from prosecution, since when installing the Pegasus spyware, the company acted as an agent of unknown foreign governments.

The administration of US President Joe Biden called on the judges to reject the appeal of the NSO Group, noting that the US State Department had never previously recognized the right to immunity for a private organization acting as an agent of a foreign state. Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp and Facebook (recognized in Russia as an extremist organization), in a statement welcomed the court's decision to reject NSO Group's' unreasonable'appeal.

Judging by the fact that in 4 years the claim was only considered and the appeal was rejected, the case moves extremely slowly. Rather, it resembles a discussion in a'warm, friendly environment', wrote "Rybar." The trial is underway, sales of Pegasus software are not blocked, governments around the world are actively using it, and the impartial American Themis is watching.

2022

The case of hacking the Spanish prime minister's phone through the Pegasus program has stalled due to Israel's silence

The case of the hacking of the mobile phones of Prime Minister Spain Pedro Sanchez and the Ministers Pegasus of Defense and Internal Affairs of the Iberian Kingdom Margarita Robles and Fernando Grande-Marlaschi with the help of the program by December 2022 has stalled, the investigation cannot get off the ground due to silence. Israel

Tel Aviv ignored all requests from the Spanish court (and there were three of them in the last seven months), and also did not give the go-ahead for the arrival of a team of Spanish investigators in Israel to take testimony from the CEO of NSO Group, which developed the Pegasus program.

It is speculated that Morocco may have been behind the hacking of Sanchez, Robles and Grande-Marlaschi's mobile phones. At a time when their devices were being hacked, relations between Spain and Morocco were tense. However, it is impossible to prove this without cooperation with Israel, and he has never helped in investigations when similar scandals arose in other countries.

Dismissal of Shalev Julio from the post of general director

At the end of August 2022 ON NSO Group , the Israeli spy company announced the resignation of CEO Shalev Julio. American authorities accused the company of transferring the espionage ON Pegasus to governments and agencies in several countries. More. here

Appeal to US Supreme Court to prevent trial with WhatsApp

Israeli commercial spy maker ON NSO Group has gone USA to the Supreme Court to prevent a high-profile lawsuit brought by the service. WhatsApp This became known on April 12, 2022.

According to the application filed in court, NSO should be considered a foreign government agent and therefore be entitled to immunity under U.S. law limiting lawsuits against foreign states. The request will appeal a number of previous federal court rulings that rejected similar NSO arguments.

WhatsApp sued NSO in 2019 for infecting 1.4 thousand users of the service with high-tech spyware. The plaintiff demanded to protect all Facebook platforms (as of April 2022, the META company banned in the Russian Federation) from the spyware manufacturer and compensate for the damage.

Granting NSO sovereign immunity would greatly impede WhatsApp's case. It could also provide the Israeli company with protection from a potentially risky process in which its customers and technology secrets can be exposed. NSO is seeking closure of the entire case.

In its petition, the company said lower courts had expressed mixed views over the years about sovereign immunity, and it was crucial for the Supreme Court to rule on an issue of such importance to national security around the world.

Many countries, including the United States, rely on private contractors to perform or support core government activities. Such contractors will never be able to achieve immunity. The United States and other countries may soon find their military and intelligence operations derailed by lawsuits against their agents,[1] in a petition to[2] with[3].

2021

International criticism over helping governments spy on opponents of the political regime and human rights activists

In November 2021, it became known that the NSO Group faced a flood of international criticism over accusations that it was helping governments spy on opponents of the political regime and human rights activists. However, according to the company itself, its product is intended solely to help countries fight crime and terrorism. The U.S. Commerce Department blacklisted NSO Group, limiting its ties to American companies. Read more here.

France suspects the country's president's phone may have been tapped with NSO software

In July 2021, France is studying a report that the phone of President Emmanuel Macron could be tapped using spy software developed by the Israeli group NSO. The Moroccan surveillance agency tried to access his private conversations in 2019.

Other heads of state and members of government, including former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, his wife, as well as incumbent Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, could also audition.

The Pegasus program, sold to individual governments and law enforcement agencies, can hack cellphones at a link and secretly record emails, calls and text messages.

2020

Revenue of $243 million

According to NSO Group, in 2020 its revenue amounted to $243 million. That's about 25-30 customers.

Facebook, Google and Microsoft demand Israeli spyware developer be held accountable

Naturally, the sale of the instrument of censorship and total control to governments around the world could not go unnoticed by law enforcement agencies.

Microsoft and Google have joined Facebook's legal fight against Israeli company NSO^[4]

The application, which was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, opens a new front in Facebook's lawsuit against NSO, which was filed in 2019. NSO argues that because it sells digital hacking tools to police and spy agencies, it should enjoy "sovereign immunity."

The reason for filing the lawsuit last year was the findings of analysts messenger WhatsApp (included in Facebook, Inc.), which approximately 1,400 of their clients received, malware sent by the defendant firm. The media also reported that an Israeli spy ON company is being used to prosecute journalists in, India politicians in Spain and human rights defenders in. Morocco

So, according to WhatsApp, in 2019, about a hundred civilian activists around the world became victims of NSO attacks. As a result, in July of this year, a court in California began to consider Facebook's application.

NSO claims its products are being used to fight crime. But human rights activists and technologists in places like Citizen Lab of Toronto London and Amnesty International have documented cases of NSO technology being used to harass reporters,. lawyers

Israeli court allows NSO Group to export spyware

An Israeli court allowed spy software maker NSO Group Technologies to continue exporting its technology. Human rights organization Amnesty International, which sued NSO Group in an attempt to block the export of the company's products, could not prove that one of the NSO Group customers used the company's technology to carry out espionage, Motherboard Vice reported in the summer of 2020^[5].

In 2018, Amnesty International representatives reported hackers spying on one of the organization's researchers with the help of the spy ON NSO Group. After this case, the organization sued the NSO Group Israel in an attempt to block the export of surveillance technology. A district court judge Tel Aviv dismissed the claim for lack of sufficient evidence.

The developer used the company's software to spy on his mistress

At the end of April 2020, it became known that an employee of the NSO Group used software developed by the company to spy on his mistress. We are talking about Pegasus software, which, according to numerous publications in the media, is used by special services of different countries, including Mosad and the NSA.

Most often, Pegasus is involved in investigating serious crimes and preventing terrorist attacks, however, as Motherboard found out, developers use this tool for personal purposes.

Software developer for Mosad and NSA used it to spy on mistress

As a number of sources told reporters, in 2016, a man who was then working for the NSO Group used software to spy on a woman he liked. Upon learning of the incident, the NSO Group fired the guilty employee and held a conversation with the rest of the employees in order to avoid such abuses in the future.

The publication says that the employee who decided to use Pegasus for espionage against his mistress connected to the system during a business trip to the United Arab Emirates, where he arrived to provide technical support to one of the clients. The developer used the program in the office of the client company.

However, the client became aware of the hack, and he told the NSO Group about the incident, after which measures were taken against the unsuccessful hacker.

According to Motherboard, an NSO Group employee tried to organize surveillance of his beloved through the office of one of the following government organizations: Military Intelligence Security Services, UAE State Security or Signals Intelligence Agency . And this means that in unauthorized entry into the UAE they could see a threat to national security.^[6]

2019: Two-founder Novalpina Capital buys back majority stake

In 2019, the investment fund Novalpina Capital, together with Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie, bought out a controlling stake. Niv Karmi exited the project at an early stage.

2014: Investment from US-based Francisco Partners

NSO Group management managed to attract funding in 2014 from the American investment company Francisco Partners. The controlling stake at that time was estimated at $120 million.

2010: Founding of the company by former Israeli intelligence officials

NSO Group, a cyber espionage company, was founded in 2010 by former Israeli intelligence officers: Niv Karmi, Shalev Hulio, Omri Lavie. The first letters of their names are in the NSO name.

Notes