NSO (Niv Shalev Omri) Group Technologies is named after the company’s founders. This is an Israeli technology company and was introduced in 2010 by Niv Carmi, Omri Lavie, and Shalev Hulio. It is based in Herzlia in Israel. These attacks go back to October 2019, where among other Al Jazeera employees, Rania Dridi –a journalist from Al Araby TV also became a victim of NSO Group’s spyware hack.
Accusations on NSO Group Spyware
In 2012, after a few investigations, the New York Times revealed that NSO’s manufactures were aimed at targeting journalists and human rights activists in the country. The manufactures of the NSO Group operated in secret for several years and were caught spying on an iPhone campaign of now-jailed human rights in 2016, in the United Arab Emirates. On August 1, 2018, NSO in partnership with Saudi Arabia, was again accused of spying on the Human Rights Organization Amnesty International’s staff member. According to the Guardian reports, the software has been targeting journalists in Morocco, as well as democratic dissenters from Rwanda and Spain.
In 2020, Citizen Lab Researchers concluded that Al Jazeera’s phones were being tracked by two attackers who were carrying out this activity on behalf of Saudi Arab and the UAE. According to researches, both phones were compromised with the implementation of an exploit chain called “kismet”.
A spokesman of NSO Group said to bring evidence before accusing their firm and also added that their spyware was only provided to the government to handle serious situations like crime and terrorism. In addition, he informed that NSO will continue to work effortlessly and make this world a safer place.
Pegasus Spyware
Pegasus spyware was introduced by the NSO Group. This spyware has existed for more than 3 years and allows the hacker to get access to the user’s files, photos, audios, and also end-to-end encrypted messages and e-mails.
How Pegasus works
- It sends a link
- The target user clicks on it
- It automatically gets installed on your iPhone or Android devices
A lot of Al-Jazeera journalists’ iPhones were hacked using the NSO Group spyware. Although it has been informed that the hack is ineffective towards iPhones with the latest Ios 14.
According to investigations carried out in August 2016, On August 23, 2020, the NSO Group was accused by the intelligence of selling Pegasus spyware for hundreds of millions of dollars to UAE and the other Gulf States.
After all the investigations have been carried out, Citizen Lab has called for regulatory rules for using surveillance technology and a global moratorium. This is supposed to be done until safeguards are implemented to guard against its misuse.
I’m Ava Paul, an experienced news website author with a special focus on the entertainment section. Over the past five years, I have worked in various positions of media and communication at World Stock Market. My experience has given me extensive knowledge in writing, editing, researching and reporting on stories related to the entertainment industry.
