The Israeli government is reluctant to be associated and keeps its distance from the NSO Group, the maker of the Pegasus spyware, which was recently blacklisted by the American Government.
NSO Group is the company behind the Pegasus spyware, which is often used to hack the cellphones of various parties, from journalists to activists to government officials. Now they have the stone.
The US Department of Commerce put NSO on the Entity List because its software threatens international regulations when sold to repressive governments.
NSO exports its products outside of Israel with the permission of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which then also investigated NSO after allegations of misuse of its software.
So far these investigations have yielded no results and the Israeli government so far does not appear to have any intention of restricting exports of NSO-made products.
"NSO is a private company, this is not a government project and that's why even if they do it intentionally, it has nothing to do with the policies of the Israeli government," said Yair Lapid, Israel's foreign minister.
"I don't think any country has stricter rules on cyber warfare than Israel and also enforces those rules, we will continue to do that," he added.
This is the first official statement from the Government of Israel since the US Government added NSO to the Entity List.
The NSO itself expressed disappointment with the US decision and they said they had terminated their contracts with government agencies that abused their products, which they claimed were intended to assist law enforcement and fight terrorism.
Pegasus is a program designed to infect its target without being detected, so users can access the target's cellphone and retrieve data such as SMS, photos, passwords, and so on without a trace.
The way it works varies and is constantly changing. For example, last July Pegasus worked through an SMS sent to the victim's cell phone. This method of infection is zero click, aka the victim does not need to open messages, click links, or other things. Simply receive a message or previously spread via a phone call on WhatsApp.
Recently, the name Pegasus has made a comeback after The Pegasus Project revealed the names associated with this spyware, including activist journalists, and even heads of government, around the world. Namely, the list of people claimed by NSO should not have been the target of Pegasus.
