Apple sues spyware developer Pegasus

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

Apple's lawsuit alleges that the NSO Group made a "coordinated effort in 2021 to attack Apple customers and Apple products and servers with dangerous malware and spyware." Now the California-based company is seeking to ban the 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, the NSO Group's tools were used against US citizens, among other things. The WSJ writes that Apple's lawsuit "leads to an escalation in the fight for user privacy."

The NSO Group has already said 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 legitimate tools to deal with them,” a spokesman for the corporation told the agency.

• This summer, journalists from the Washington Post and other publications in a large joint investigation found that special Pegasus spyware, developed by the NSO Group, was used to hack smartphones belonging to journalists, activists and business leaders around the world. It turned out that the program can hack phones through the link and secretly record emails, calls and text messages. In some cases, spyware has activated even if the victim does not click on the link.
• In addition, the journalists found evidence that the Israeli tech company was specifically selling 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, according to MIT Technology Review, citing sources, interest in Pegasus was expressed not only by authoritarian governments. According to the publication, even the French government was in the final stages of negotiations to buy spyware from the NSO. The French were already ready to acquire the hacking tool, but after it turned out that the program was spying on French citizens, including the president himself, negotiations were disrupted.