Apple sues spyware developer Pegasus

Apple has filed a lawsuit against the Israeli company NSO Group, which developed the controversial Pegasus spyware. The IT corporation demands that the developer be prohibited from accessing Apple devices, writes WSJ.

Apple's lawsuit alleges that NSO Group made a "coordinated effort in 2021 to target Apple customers and Apple products and servers with dangerous malware and spyware." Now the California company is seeking to ban NSO Group from using any Apple products.

Apple employees spent “thousands of hours” responding to NSO Group attacks, the company said in a statement. According to Apple's complaint, NSO Group's tools were used, among other things, against US citizens. The WSJ writes that Apple's lawsuit "leads to an escalation in the fight over user privacy."

NSO Group has already stated that its software has actually helped save thousands of lives around the world. “Pedophiles and terrorists are free to operate in technological havens, and we only provide governments with legal tools to combat them,” a corporate spokesman told the agency.

• This summer, journalists from the Washington Post and other publications in a large joint investigation found that a special spyware called Pegasus, developed by NSO Group, was used to hack smartphones belonging to journalists, activists and company executives around the world. It turned out that the program can hack phones using a link and secretly record emails, calls and text messages. In some cases, the spyware is activated even if the victim does not click on the link.
• In addition, journalists found evidence that the Israeli technology company specifically sold spyware to some governments and national law enforcement agencies. Hundreds of high-ranking officials were on the surveillance list, including 10 prime ministers and three presidents - Emmanuel Macron (France), Barham Saleh (Iraq) and Cyril Ramaphosa (South Africa).
• At the same time, as MIT Technology Review reports , citing sources, not only authoritarian governments expressed interest in Pegasus. According to the publication, even the French government was in the final stages of negotiations to purchase spyware from NSO. The French were already ready to purchase a hacking tool, but after it turned out that the program was spying on French citizens, including the president himself, the negotiations broke down.