Updated:
Save
The espionage scandal that has affected some of the most important Spanish politicians in our country in recent hours has its own name: the ‘spyware’ Pegasus. This was reported several days ago by the Catalan leaders, who blamed this surveillance of their mobile phones to the Executive of Pedro Sánchez. However, now the Government of Spain has been the last to clarify that both the president and the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, would have been spied on thanks to this software.
This controversial programme, accused of having spied on more than 50,000 international personalities -including some Spanish politicians-, was created by the Israeli company NSO Group to offer these services to governments and agencies.
Although in principle the intention is that it be used for fight terrorism and crimethe truth is that it has ended up becoming a perfect tool to control politicians and personalities belonging to 19 countries.
Thanks to the use of Pegasus, it is possible to have total control of the mobile device of the infected user, so that messages, applications, calls, location and even the camera and microphone of the terminal itself can be accessed. Thus, it not only affects the victim, but also the entire environment, and hardly leaves a trace of the infection.
But who is really behind Pegasus? Who are the creators of this spy software and how did the idea come about? And what have they said about the latest political surveillance scandals?
Who are the creators of NSO Group, the company behind Pegasus?
NSO Technologies is the company that created Pegasus software and was, for a long time, one of the leading international companies in terms of cybersecurity. Founded by Niv Karmi, Omri Lavie and Shalev Huli in Israel in 2010, it grew to have more than 500 employees worldwide.
The company was born from the vestiges of an old company that Hulio and Lavie set up together and that ended up succumbing to the consequences of the 2008 crisis. It was shortly after that, after gutting one of the first iPhones to hit the market, they discovered a way to gain control of the remote terminal. From then on, they decided to settle in an old chicken farm in Tel Aviv and start a business adventure that, a decade later, would lead them to be the focus of the media due to espionage scandals.
Initially, the company was focused on customer service, specializing in configuring the telephone of the users of the operators –with the client’s permission–. However, with the passage of time, he ended up completely changing his business towards that of advanced technology and, especially, remote surveillance of mobile devices. Since then, the company has dedicated itself to searching for vulnerabilities in all mobile technologies, from Apple devices to Android, in order to access terminals.
Always with the authorization of the Government of Israel, NSO Group has used Pegasus to fight terrorism and crime hand in hand with more than 10 countries, although recent scandals have shown that the surveillance of politicians, journalists and activists has also been a central part of his work.
The new owners of NSO Group
However, behind NSO Group are no longer its initial founders. In fact, since 2019, the company has been in the hands of new owners: the investment fund Novalpina Capital.
That same year, this British institution bought the Israeli company for 1,000 million dollars. Shortly after, the first cases of international espionage began to be uncovered thanks to the investigations of the Citizen Lab, of the University of Toronto.
As a result of this scandal and the litigation that the company has faced in recent years, last July 2021 it was announced that Novalpina Capital would be dissolved. This was explained by internal sources of the London institution, which made the decision to end an “internal war” between leaders.
NSO Group’s response to espionage allegations
Accusations of espionage against NSO Group for its Pegasus system have been going on for years. They began in 2019, with the denunciation of WhatsApp and Facebook, which took the Israeli firm to court in September 2019, accused of taking advantage of a hole in the messaging application to hack users.
Following the sale of NSO Group in 2019, the British investment fund Novalpina Capital is now in charge of all litigation related to espionage allegations. From the company, they have always defended that Pegasus sells only to legitimate Governmentsbut the truth is that there are indications that some private companies have used it to spy on activists and journalists in Mexico.
London investors have pointed out that the denunciations of large companies and governments, the spying exercised by the company and the inclusion in the US blacklist have caused a loss of “all your investment in NSO”. Since July 2021, there have been no new hires at the company and they point out that the Israeli company has become “worthless”.
In addition, from the company itself they have ensured that different strategies of internal audit in the Pegasus spyware environment to learn how this tool is used. In fact, they explain that they have improved their internal controls and in their transparency report, they confirm that in 2021 they had up to 60 clients in 40 countries, more than half of them state espionage agencies.
The firm has even blamed Citizen Lab reports against NSO Group and espionage via Pegasus on antiisraelíes.
See them
comments