NSO Group Technologies

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NSO Group Technologies Limited
legal form Private
founding 2010
Seat Herzliya , IsraelIsraelIsrael 
management Shalev Hulio (CEO)
Number of employees 500 (2017)
Branch monitoring
Website www.nsogroup.com

NSO Group Technologies is an Israeli technology company known for its Pegasus spyware , which enables remote monitoring of smartphones. The company mainly develops software and surveillance technology . It was founded in 2010 by Niv Carmi , Omri Lavie and Shalev Hulio (the name NSO stands for the respective first names of the founders). It reportedly employed nearly 500 people as of 2017 and is based in Herzliya , near Tel Aviv .

According to various reports, software developed by the NSO Group has been used in targeted attacks against human rights activists and journalists in various countries, has been used in state espionage against Pakistan and played a role in the assassination of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi .

history

The founders of the NSO are said to be former members of Unit 8200 , the Aman's telecommunications and electronic intelligence unit . The company's seed funding came from a group of investors led by Eddy Shalev , a partner in venture capital fund Genesis Partners . The group invested a total of $ 1.8 million for a 30% stake.

In 2012, the Mexican government announced the signing of a $ 20 million contract with the NSO. In 2015 the company reportedly sold surveillance technology to the government of Panama . The contract became the subject of a Panamanian anti-corruption investigation after confidential information from the contract was disclosed in a leak by the Italian company Hacking Team .

In 2014, the American private equity firm Francisco Partners bought the company for $ 130 million. In 2015, it was reported that Francisco Partners was planning to sell the company for up to $ 1 billion. The company officially went on sale for more than $ 1 billion in June 2017, about 10 times the amount Francisco originally paid in 2014. At the time, NSO employed nearly 500 people, up from around 50 in 2014.

On February 14, 2019, Francisco Partners sold a 60% majority stake in NSO back to co-founders Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie, who were supported in the purchase by London-based private equity firm Novalpina Capital . Hulio and Lavie invested $ 100 million, with Novalpina acquiring the remaining majority stake, valuing the company at around $ 1 billion.

In April 2019, the NSO froze its business with Saudi Arabia over a scandal over the role of NSO software in tracking down the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the months leading up to his death.

In May 2019, the WhatsApp messaging service claimed that a spyware injection process aimed at its calling function was developed by NSO. The victims were exposed to the spyware attacks even if they did not answer the call. The NSO denied involvement in the selection of the victims or the target group, but did not specifically deny that it created the spyware. In response to the alleged cyber attack, WhatsApp sued the NSO on October 29 in a San Francisco court under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and other US laws. WhatsApp said the attack targeted 1,400 users in 20 countries, including at least 100 human rights defenders, politicians, journalists and other members of civil society.

In January 2020, it was announced that software from the company had been used to hack entrepreneur Jeff Bezos' smartphone and access data. The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is said to be behind the attack . The Saudi government denied these allegations. The NSO Group also denied the allegations.

Pegasus malware

Pegasus is a malicious program developed by the NSO Group that can access smartphones, computers and other devices and can be used for espionage purposes. The Israel Defense Ministry grants licenses to export Pegasus to foreign governments, but not to private entities.

Early versions of Pegasus were used to monitor the phone of Joaquín Guzmán , known as El Chapo. In 2011, Mexican President Felipe Calderón allegedly called the NSO to thank the company for its role in the capture of Guzmán.

Researchers at Citizen Lab , an institute affiliated with the University of Toronto , have succeeded in detecting data traces (“DNS cache probing”) of the Pegasus malware in 45 countries. Previously, a leak in the hacking team's records revealed that the software had been delivered to the Panama government in 2015. The researchers found that the Mexican journalist Rafael Cabrera had also been targeted and that the software was in Israel, Turkey , Thailand , Qatar , Kenya , Uzbekistan , Mozambique , Morocco , Yemen , Hungary , Saudi Arabia , Nigeria and Bahrain could have been used.

In June 2018, an Israeli court indicted a former NSO group employee for allegedly stealing a copy of Pegasus and trying to sell it online for $ 50 million in cryptocurrency .

In October 2018, Citizen Lab reported on using NSO software to spy on Jamal Khashoggi's inner circle shortly before he was assassinated. Citizen Lab's October report found with great certainty that the NSO's Pegasus had been placed months earlier on the iPhone of one of Khashoggi's confidants, Saudi dissident Omar Abdulaziz. Abdulaziz said the software exposes Khashoggi's "private criticism of the Saudi royal family," which, according to Abdulaziz, "played a major role" in Kashoggi's death.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joseph Cox, Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai: Meet NSO Group, The New Big Player In The Government Spyware Business. In: Vice. August 25, 2016, accessed February 1, 2020 .
  2. ^ A b Thomas Brewster: Everything We Know About NSO Group: The Professional Spies Who Hacked iPhones With A Single Text. Retrieved February 1, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Orr Hirschauge, Inbal Orpaz: US Fund to Buy NSO and Its Smartphone-snooping Software . In: Haaretz . February 17, 2014 ( Haaretz.com [accessed February 1, 2020]).
  4. ↑ Abren sumario en caso Hacking Team | La Prensa Panamá. August 7, 2015, accessed February 1, 2020 (Spanish).
  5. ↑ Danny Yadron: Can This Israeli Startup Hack Your Phone? In: WSJ. August 1, 2014, Retrieved February 1, 2020 (American English).
  6. ↑ Israeli hacking company NSO Group is on sale for more than $ 1 billion. June 12, 2017, accessed February 1, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Novalpina Capital and founders buy NSO at $ 1b co value. February 14, 2019, accessed February 1, 2020 (Hebrew).
  8. ↑ TOI staff: Israeli spy tech firm linked to Khashoggi murder said to freeze Saudi deals. Retrieved February 1, 2020 (American English).
  9. ↑ WhatsApp sues Israel's NSO for allegedly helping spies hack phones around the world . In: Reuters . October 30, 2019 ( reuters.com [accessed February 1, 2020]).
  10. ↑ DER SPIEGEL: WhatsApp vulnerability: Politicians and the military also spied on - DER SPIEGEL - Netzwelt. Retrieved August 8, 2020 .
  11. ↑ a b Alexander Sarovic, Marcel Rosenbach, Dietmar Pieper, Guido Mingels, Susanne Koelbl, DER SPIEGEL: The Cyber ​​War of Mohammed bin Salman - DER SPIEGEL - Politics. Accessed February 1, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Rare photo shows a device from the mysterious company that built the hardware for the hack against Jeff Bezos. January 23, 2020, accessed on February 1, 2020 (German).
  13. ↑ שי אספריל: יש לנו מאזין על הקו. October 18, 2012, accessed February 1, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Exclusive: How Mexican drug baron El Chapo was brought down by technology made in Israel. October 1, 2019, accessed on February 1, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Sven Millischer: With Pegasus, iPhones become a bug trap Handelsblatt.ch, October 31, 2018, accessed on June 25, 2019
  16. ↑ Joseph Steinberg: Rogue CyberSecurity Company Employee Tried To Sell Powerful, Stolen iPhone Malware For $ 50-Million - Joseph Steinberg. Retrieved February 1, 2020 (American English).
  17. ↑ APNewsBreak: Undercover agents target cybersecurity watchdog. January 25, 2019, accessed February 1, 2020 (American English).
  18. ^ The CIA Sent Warnings to at Least 3 Khashoggi Associates About New Saudi Threats. Retrieved February 1, 2020 .