Apple sues NSO Officially

Apple filed a lawsuit against Israeli firm NSO Group Technologies over the NSO’s use of its Pegasus spyware. The company is legitimate and its services, including Pegasus, are deployed by various governments to spy on people. Those people have in the past included journalists, human rights activists, business executives

Pegasus has been described as military-grade software and “the most potent piece of spyware ever developed.” It works, including against Apple devices, and therefore Apple is taking legal action.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court Northern District of California San Jose Division, call NSO “notorious hackers” and “amoral 21st-century mercenaries.” Lawsuit described

Apple claims that NSO harms Apple users for their own commercial gains. The Apple lawsuit is aiming to prevent NSO from targeting Apple users. In addition, the lawsuit seeks to prevent NSO from using any Apple product or service.

Reports, claim that the lawsuit, if successful, would be a “massive blow to the company that sells governments the ability to hack iPhones and Android phones in order to gain full access.” Except that Israel is not Northern California and a U.S. lawsuit makes absolutely no difference to a company founded and based in Israel. The lawsuit, at most, might restrict the company’s operations in the U.S.

Apple’s interest in NSO and its lawsuit, goes back to NSO being one of the few companies to compromise Apple devices successfully Once after the flaw in iOS was revealed in August, Apple updated its software to block the exploit in September. It’s possible NSO has found a new exploit in iOS to take advantage of in the meantime.

Whether NSO will even bother to counter the lawsuit is also a consideration. In previous cases, such as Meta lawsuit, NSO has claimed that it has sovereign immunity because it works hand-in-hand with foreign government intelligence agencies.