Apple denounces Israeli company NSO for infiltrating its iPhones

The tech giant Apple on Tuesday denounced the Israeli software company NSO Group, which he accuses of having violated US laws with the sale of a program called Pegasus with which he allegedly accessed their phones illegally. iPhone.

In the lawsuit, filed in the Northern District Court of California, Apple rated NSO Group from “Amoral mercenaries of the 21st century” and considered that the Pegasus program is a “Highly sophisticated cyber surveillance machinery that invites flagrant and routine abuse.”

Those attacks affected a “Small number of users worldwide”, Apple said in a statement on its website.

According to the prestigious laboratory of the University of Toronto (Canada) Citizen Lab, the Israeli software company NSO Group It has been infecting iPhone phones and other Apple devices since February, taking advantage of a security flaw that allowed spyware to be installed.

Spyware is installed through the instant messaging program iMessage and affects both iOS (mobile operating system) and MacOS (computers) and WatchOS (watches).

Exploiting the vulnerability of the system, this “spyware”Is installed without the need for the user to perform any operation, and affects all versions of operating systems except one released by Apple in September to prevent further incursions into their operating systems.

Citizen Lab discovered the vulnerability of the system and its exploitation by NSO Group upon finding that an iPhone belonging to a Saudi activist had been infected with spyware dubbed Pegasus.

Pegasus allows the perpetrator access to the activities of the infected device, as well as to the camera, microphone, photos, location, text messages, e-mails and calls without the victim having even knowledge of it .

The Israeli company NSO Group is supposedly dedicated to cybersecurity, but its software is used by governments around the world to gain access – often illegal – to phones and other devices of journalists, activists and political enemies.

In early November, the US Department of Commerce blacklisted NSO Group for activities related to cyber espionage, to which the company said it felt “Shocked” and assured that their technologies “they support the national security interests ”of Washington.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

Microsoft overtakes Apple and becomes the most valuable company on Wall Street