According to a Reuters report, the iPhones of at least nine U.S. State Department employees were hacked by an anonymous source using sophisticated spyware developed by the Israeli NSO. This is according to four sources close to the issue.
According to two of them, the break-ins, which have taken place in recent months, have focused on American workers residing in Uganda, and have focused on matters concerning the East African country.
A list of potential targets in the NSO has been published in the past, which included some U.S. officials, but it was unclear whether the break-ins were indeed successful, or just unsuccessful attempts.
It is not yet known who is behind the break-ins.
The NSO Group has stated that it has no indication that it has been abused, but has canceled the relevant accounts and will conduct an investigation based on the Reuters reports.
Following the announcements tonight, the nso company wants to clarify the following: “We have previously undertaken that in any case where a suspicion arises that the company’s customer has abused the systems sold to him, the company will open an investigation and disconnect the systems if the suspicion is true.
“Last night, after receiving a complaint that there was a suspicion that Ugandan phones used by US government representatives in the country were hacked, we opened an investigation and more before it was completed and given the seriousness of the allegations, we immediately disconnected the relevant customers.
“This immediate disconnection was made even though there is no indication that they were hacked by our technology. Even in the allegations made by all the parties involved, it was explicitly stated that there is no indication and there is certainly no proof of our customers’ use of our technology.
“It should be emphasized that Pegasus software is installed on the basis of telephone numbers and this is our technological impediment to operating on American numbers. In this case, these are not American numbers and the company had no way of knowing which factors were monitored by our customers. More legal. “