Israeli hacking firm NSO Group offered Saudis cellphone spy tools – report

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-hacking-firm-nso-group-offered-saudis-cellphone-spy-tools-report/

By TOI STAFF and AGENCIES
The Times of Israel
25 November 2018

An Israeli company that specializes in cyber espionage tools reportedly 
negotiated a multi-million-dollar deal with Saudi Arabia to sell a 
technology that allows governments to hack their citizens' cellphones, and 
to listen to calls as well as conversations that take place near the 
phones.

Representatives from the Herzliya-based NSO Group held meetings with Saudi 
officials in Vienna and, apparently, also in a Gulf State to negotiate a 
$55 million sale of their Pegasus 3 software, the Haaretz daily reported 
on Sunday.

The outcome of those talks is now the subject of a lawsuit by a European 
businessman not named in the report, who claims he helped set up the 
initial contact between Israeli dealers and Saudi buyers, but was 
allegedly frozen out of receiving any commission on the deal.

The NSO Group has been the subject of much controversy in recent years, 
with Canadian internet watchdog Citizen Lab claiming that the Pegasus 
software marketed by the company is being used by a number of countries 
"with dubious human rights records and histories of abusive behavior by 
state security services."

[...]



--
Subscribe to InfoSec News
https://www.infosecnews.org/subscribe-to-infosec-news/
https://twitter.com/infosecnews_