NSO Group Update: Surprise! We Knew Zippo
April 13, 2022
I find it interesting that Reuters in the midst of a war, a Covid thing, and economic craziness has the desire to recycle themes about the NSO Group. “Exclusive: Senior EU Officials Were Targeted with Israeli Spyware” reports that the intelware vendor is still snagged in brambles. The news story reports that Reuters’ reporters reviewed some documents which apparently reveal more interesting applications of Pegasus and possibly other specialized services provided by the Israeli company. The alleged spying popped up as a note from the very big, very privacy talking outfit Apple. I think it would be unnerving to receive a notice like “you may be targeted” instead of “Confirm your Apple payment information.”
The trusted news source (yes, that would be Thomson Reuters) included a statement from NSO Group that suggested the firm’s specialized software was not able to perform alleged spying on EU officials. The story points out that examination of mobile devices did not reveal a smoking gun or smoking bits as it were.
Several observations:
- Real journalists from Thomson Reuters are watching NSO Group and information about the firm. I interpret this attention to mean, “More stories about NSO Group will be coming down the information highway.”
- NSO Group continues to point out that the company is mostly in the dark when these allegations become real news.
- Legal eagles will flock and frolic in Brussels and then take off, head east, and drop bundles of assorted legal documents on the individuals still working at NSO Group.
- NSO Group will get a lot of booth traffic at the ISS Telestrategies Conference in Prague in a few weeks.
Net net: The amping up of public information about NSO Group in particular and intelware in general is not helpful to a number of agencies and companies. (I spoke with a US vendor of intelware as part of the research for my Spring lectures. A spokesperson for the company said on a Zoom call, “Please, do not mention our firm to those in your law enforcmeent audiences.” The reason: The company wants to sell to marketing firms, not government agencies. Too much risk.)
Stephen E Arnold, April 13, 2022
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