Jerusalem The software “Pegasus”, developed by the Israeli cyber company NSO, has been in great demand for years because it is considered to be one of the world’s most efficient instruments for monitoring cell phones.
Pegasus, advertises NSO, whose abbreviation stands for the first names of the founders Niv Karmi, Omri Lavie and Shalev Hulio, is used to “prevent crime and terror as well as safeguard national security”. Thousands of people in Europe owed their lives to NSO employees, the company claimed.
Pegasus is a dual-use product that is also available to those who want to monitor regime critics, the NSO compliance officer admitted to the Handelsblatt about a year ago. The software secretly sneaks into a target person’s smartphone and displays its encrypted content in such a way that the NSO customer can see it.
This customer can be a secret service that wants to prevent terrorist attacks or a dictator who monitors critics with Pegasus. According to the employee, NSO “unfortunately” has no control over this because Pegasus is not sold to individuals, but to governments: “We deliver the software to them and they use it.”
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the door opener for NSO managers on his trips abroad. The export license was only granted on the condition that Pegasus would only be used to defend against terrorism and serious criminal offenses. But the relevant regulation, which is controlled by the Ministry of Defense, is a state secret that escapes parliamentary control. And so Pegasus was allegedly delivered to countries like Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, India and the United Arab Emirates.
Israel’s government is also under pressure
Because of the misuse of the cyber software, not only the NSO but also the Israeli government has come under pressure for allowing the software to be exported. In France, for example, spy technology was found on government telephones to allegedly eavesdrop on conversations by French President Emmanuel Macron. When Defense Secretary Benny Gantz was in Paris that summer, the NSO issue was high on the agenda. The US Department of Commerce has even blacklisted the product from the Israeli cyber group.
After the scandal became known, the trade minister was critical of the Israeli company’s software.
(Photo: AP)
The NSO activities would harm American interests, the reason was given after it became known that the espionage software was also used to eavesdrop on at least two employees of the American State Department in Uganda.
In order to avoid further diplomatic crises, the government of Naftali Bennett has clipped the wings of the NSO group and reduced the number of states to which Pegasus can be sold from 102 to 37.
The former cyber pearl is now on the brink of abyss, the daily newspaper “Haaretz” quotes officials of the Israeli Defense Ministry who are responsible for export licenses. Together with the reduction in the number of countries permitted for sales, the US sanctions could soon lead to the collapse of the company.
Legal problems for Pegasus
NSO also faces legal problems. Apple, WhatsApp and its parent company Meta have sued the Pegasus spyware manufacturer. Apple is seeking “a permanent injunction” against the NSO group to prevent the Israeli company from hacking into its products. Last year, technology companies such as Microsoft and Google took legal action against NSO.
Pegasus is permanently dependent on innovation in order to function as a virtual spy even after updates to Apple or Android cell phones. NSO is not even able to “buy a pen in a Walmart store,” joked Israel Defense Ministry officials. And if an American company wants to sell them products, it first needs a special permit.
The north Tel Aviv-based firm, valued at $ 1 billion in a 2019 private equity deal, is now considering either selling the entire company or closing its Pegasus unit.
The latter would reduce NSO to the drone defense system “Eclipse” developed by them. NSO engineers assure that it only serves to protect civilians. For example, sports fans in the stadium or passengers in the airport can be protected from deadly drone attacks. Eclipse automatically detects the danger, whereupon the platform takes control of the drones and brings them safely to land in a risk-free zone. The fact that this technology can be used not only defensively but also offensively is currently not an issue at NSO.
The annual turnover that NSO achieves with its more than 700 employees is one of the company’s trade secrets. But insiders estimate it to be around $ 300 million.
However, the company failed to adhere to its compliance officer’s policy that any misuse of the malware would “result in immediate sanctions by NSO – determined and uncompromising.”
Whether hacking human rights activists in Morocco or Bahrain, spying on regime critics in Poland or monitoring princesses in the United Arab Emirates: the name Pegasus appears again and again.
The espionage software was also sold to Riyadh to monitor people close to the Saudi regime critic Jamal Khashoggi before and after his death. According to Washington, Pegasus was also placed on Kashoggi’s wife’s cell phone months before he was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.
More: With the software from NSO terrorists can be hunted down – and opposition members can be put under pressure.