Tech giant also seeks ban on firm from using any Apple products or tech
Tech giant Apple is suing Iraeli cyber-security firm NSO and its parent group Q Cyber Technologies for allegedly targeting Apple users with the Pegasus hacking software via a ‘FORCEDENTRY’ exploit. Apple is also seeking a ban on NSO using any Apple tech, software or services.
When the ‘Pegasus’ scandal broke, the firm said that the technology – licensed to governments around the world, including those known to spy on their own citizens – was only used against terrorists and claimed that the Washington Post’s investigation was without merit. However, among examples of phones hacked using the software was Middle East Eye‘s Turkey bureau chief Ragip Soylu, which was hacked by Saudi Arabia.
An NSO attempt to avoid a lawsuit from WhatsApp on the grounds that it had ‘foreign sovereign immunity’ was rejected by a US court. According to Middle East Eye, the French government was finalising plans to buy Pegasus spyware in July but cut off negotiations when it realised politicians, including President Emmanuel Macron, may have been targeted with the product, The French government has denied it was planning to purchase the system.
Apple’s Craig Federighi said in a statement that:
State-sponsored actors like the NSO Group spend millions of dollars on sophisticated surveillance technologies without effective accountability. That needs to change,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering.
While these cybersecurity threats only impact a very small number of our customers, we take any attack on our users very seriously, and we’re constantly working to strengthen the security and privacy protections in iOS to keep all our users safe.
An NSO spokesperson told MEE that:
thousands of lives were saved around the world thanks to NSO Group’s technologies used by its customers. Paedophiles and terrorists can freely operate in technological safe havens, and we provide governments the lawful tools to fight it. NSO group will continue to advocate for the truth.
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I’ll bet the good old UK Govt. have no such qualms about using the software…
I hope Apple clean NSO out. It’s just what they deserve.
If Apple wins this case, I hope it has the knock-on effect of making the US State Department think again, about the billions of dollars they, continually, shovel into the Israeli apartheid regime’s coffers.
That would hurt the Israeli government, just as much Nickerson having to donate a sizeable sum of money to JC’s nominated charities.
Hurt pride, and loss of money, combined. It wouldn’t do much for their credibility, either.
Me too. Thing is, Apple (and Google and Facebook etc.) is hardly anyone’s idea of a retributing agent.
The aforementioned tech companies are given near-monopolistic protection by the American state in return for their willingness to spy on us and give the NSA more information about us in one hour than the STASSI could collate in ten years.
Mass Indiscrimate Surveillance. The Powers that Be would be nothing without it.
Does it cover former Israeli spies currently working for Temporary Embarrassment
An example of America not allowing any ‘foreign immunity’ from prosecution that is for the good as opposed to the travesty that’s befallen Julian Assange. You can bet your life the British security services are using Pegasus to spy on us and American citizens. That’s how they normally get round spying on their own and we are so cowed, the security services can do whatever they want especially with the head of the Met and the opposition leader on board.
“Paedophiles and terrorists” What does that even mean? The only ‘terrorism’ we’ve suffered in the last two decades is from lone wolfs who haven’t been in communication with anyone or groups of radical immigrants who were only allowed to live in this country because of their regime change ambitions or second/third generation immigrants who were known to the security services. As for paedophilia, we all know about the scandals dating back to the seventies involving royals, MPs, police, judges, army and security services yet the only person convicted of anything is one of the victim’s. I’ve never read such a load of weaselly shit.
its the classic authoritarian approach to rolling back civil rights and liberties e.g. privacy
Remember the Stuxnet worm, developed by the USA and Israel to disable the nuclear centrifuges in Iran? Despite promises to the contrary, Israel went rogue and used the worm against other targets. As a result, the worm got out and wreaked havoc all around the world in hospitals and other vital services. Israel doesn’t give a damn about anyone but itself.
I gues this is what happens when you give power seeking fascist groups carte blanche to do what the hell they want