Apple has filed a lawsuit against Israeli cyber firm NSO Group and its parent business OSY Technologies for alleged monitoring and targeting of U.S. Apple consumers with its Pegasus malware, the company announced on Tuesday. As a precaution against future misuse, Apple has stated that it is also attempting to prohibit NSO Group from utilising any Apple software, services, or devices.
According to watchdog groups, hackers using the Pegasus hacking programme have been specifically targeting human rights defenders and journalists. Apple is the latest in a long line of corporations and countries to take action against NSO. The corporation was placed on a US trade blacklist earlier this month. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Alphabet Inc, and Cisco Systems Inc. have all taken legal action against NSO.
NSO is reported to be supplying hacking tools to foreign governments that can defeat the security of products created by these corporations.
National Security Agency (NSA) has claimed thousands of lives have been saved via the use of its technologies, which it says are only sold by governments and law enforcement organisations and have controls in place to keep them from being misused.
“For example, we equip governments with the legitimate means to combat paedophilia in technology safe-havens. ” A spokeswoman for the NSO Group stated in a statement, “We will continue to fight for the truth.”
NSO Group’s Forcedentry attack was also discussed in a blog post by Apple. Pegasus, a spyware software developed by NSO Group, has been installed on an Apple iPhone using an exploit that has been fixed, the firm says. First discovered by the Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto-based research group, the flaw has been attributed to the firm.
Apple customers throughout the world were targeted by the spyware, which was used to spread malware and spyware.” Apple is suing NSO Group to stop it from injuring people with Apple’s goods and services in the future. Restitution for NSO’s “flagrant breaches of US federal and state law, deriving from its attempts to target and destroy Apple,” the business stated in a recent article, “is also sought in this case.”
“Considered efforts in 2021 to target and attack Apple customers” and “U.S. citizens have been surveilled by NSO’s spyware on mobile devices that can and do cross international borders” are among the claims made in Apple’s complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
In order to carry out its assaults, NSO Group allegedly established more than 100 bogus Apple ID user credentials. Rather, Apple claims that NSO abused and exploited its servers to send the assaults to Apple users, rather than their own.
The NSO Group has claimed that it sells its tools to customers, but Apple alleges that the group was actively involved in providing consultancy services for the assaults.
A “continual arms race” is required between Apple and the Defendants, who “continually update their malware and vulnerabilities in order to beat Apple’s own security improvements,” Apple claimed in a statement.
NSO’s tools have not been utilised against Apple devices running iOS 15, the newest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, according to a statement from Apple.
According to Apple, it would contribute $10 million to cyber-surveillance research groups, including Citizen Lab, the University of Toronto group that initially detected NSO’s activities, and any damages obtained from the case.
