Israeli Government Finally Decides To Start Looking Into NSO Group And Its Customers

The NSO Group's latest scandal is the gift that keeps on giving. The malware purveyor has always been controversial, thanks to its decision to sell powerful cellphone exploits to known human rights violators. That these exploits have been used to place world leaders, journalists, activists, and religious leaders under surveillance is just the expected result of choosing to do business with extremely shady governments.

A list of 50,000 phone numbers portrayed as potential targets for NSO's Pegasus malware is the latest black eye for the Israeli company. The list contains numbers linked to all of the sorts of individuals listed above -- not exactly the criminals and "Bin Ladens" of the world, as NSO claims its software is used to surveil.

These revelations have led to a lot of obfuscation and backpedaling by NSO, which simultaneously claims its customers do not abuse its products while also claiming it has no insight into how its customers choose to deploy the Pegasus malware. So, when NSO says it takes action when customers use its product to target people who aren't suspected criminals or terrorists, it's pretty much just making stuff up because it really doesn't know the malware is being used or who it's being deployed against. This has prompted reactions all over the world. In France (where activists are being sued for claiming governments have deployed this spyware), French President Emmanuel Macron recently acquired a new phone after discovering his old one had potentially been targeted by a foreign government using NSO's spyware. This prompted a call from the French government to the Israeli government demanding some answers about NSO Group, its customers, and its targets.