After WhatsApp and Meta sued NSO group based in Israel on his Pegasus spyware, Apple now following suit. Today, the company announced a lawsuit against the NSO group in an effort to “curb the abuse of state-sponsored spyware.” Apple is seeking damages in this case (which is not revealed in the announcement today) and was looking to create a group NSO from using “apple software, service, or device” in the future.
Apple set the view on the state-sponsored spyware
As described in the announcement of Apple’s current lawsuit, NSO Group is responsible for the exploitation of so-called click-zero Forcedentry, who installed the spyware Pegasus on personal devices by utilizing an integer overflow vulnerability. Apple points to the citizens of the lab report in September as evidence that the NSO uses Pegasus group to spy on “journalists, activists, dissidents, academics, and government officials,” in violation of human rights in the process.
While Apple had patched the vulnerability and said that Pegasus eventually used to strike “a small number” of users, the idea that the NSO Group has abused the software to spy on political opponents, journalists, and academics on behalf of Israel is indeed very worrying.
“State-sponsored actors such as NSO groups spend millions of dollars on sophisticated surveillance technology without effective accountability. That needs to change,” said Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said in today’s announcement. “Apple device is hardware consumers the safest on the market – but the private companies that develop spyware sponsored by the state has become more dangerous. While the threat of cybersecurity it only affects a small number of our customers, we take any attack on our users very seriously , and we continually work to strengthen the security and privacy protection in iOS to keep all of our users safe. “
Apple is not alone in pushing the group NSO
Apple seems to see this lawsuit as drawing a line in the sand. “This is Apple says: If you do this, if you menyenjara our software to the users, researchers, dissidents, activists or journalists who are innocent, Apple will give you a quarter,” said the head of engineering and architecture of Apple to the New York Times in interview this week.
Apple, WhatsApp, and Meta did not pursue any NSO group. Microsoft, Google, and Cisco back demands Meta (And Facebook) to an organization, but the click-zero exploits also attracted the attention of the US government. New York Times noted that Biden administration has blacklisted both NSO Group and other companies, Candiru, which means there is no US-based organization with a good company.
In an announcement today, Apple said that it would contribute $ 10 million plus damages from the lawsuit to “pursue research and advocacy organization cybersurveillance,” such as laboratories citizens and Amnesty Tech mentioned above. The company also said that it has not seen indications of a remote attack performed on devices running iOS 15 and then, so if you’re still using an older version of iOS, it seems like a very good idea to apply it. The software update that may be waiting.
The company will reach out to those affected by the exploitation of these zero-click and Spyware Pegasus. In addition, we will continue to provide you with information about this lawsuit and the others could face the NSO group of companies based in the US.
