By MEMO
December 05, 202:
Information Clearing House
-- "MEMO"
The iPhones of at least nine senior US
officials have been hacked by sophisticated spyware
developed by Israeli-based NSO Group, Reuters
revealed on Friday.
The US officials are employees of the US State
Department, Reuters reported, and the iPhones
were hacked in recent months.
Reuters disclosed two of its sources
stating that the US State Department employees were
either based in Uganda or focused on matters
relating to Uganda.
Commenting on the issue, the
NSO Group affirmed: "If our investigation shall
show these actions indeed happened with NSO's tools,
such customer will be terminated permanently and
legal actions will take place."
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It also added that NSO will: "Cooperate with any
relevant government authority and present the full
information we will have."
According to Reuters, officials at the
Embassy of the Republic of Uganda in Washington have
not made comment, and
Apple has declined to comment.
A State Department spokesperson declined to
comment on the intrusions, instead, pointed to the
Commerce Department's recent decision to place the
Israeli company on an entity list, making it harder
for US companies to do business with them.
NSO software is capable of not only capturing
encrypted messages, photos and other sensitive
information from phones, but also turning them into
recording devices to monitor surroundings, based on
product manuals reviewed by Reuters.
NSO has been reported as stating that its
technology helps stop terrorism and that the group
has installed controls to curb spying against
innocent targets.
An unidentified senior Biden administration
official, as reported by Reuters, said the
threat to US personnel abroad was one of the reasons
that the administration was cracking down on
companies such as NSO and pursuing new global
discussions on spying limits.
The official added that they have seen "systemic
abuse" in multiple countries involving NSO's Pegasus
spyware.
In a statement, the Israeli Embassy in Washington
declared that targeting US officials would seriously
breach its rules.
"Cyber products, like the one mentioned, are
supervised and licensed to be exported to
governments only for purposes related to
counter-terrorism and severe crimes," an embassy
spokesperson confirmed.
It is worth noting that NSO has sought the help
of Israeli officials, including Prime Minister
Naftali Bennett, to remove its name from a US
blacklist.
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