Apple Aims to Cut Down on Spyware With Lawsuit Against NSO Group

This article has been indexed from MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors – Front Page

Apple today announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Israeli firm NSO Group and its parent company with the aim of holding it accountable for targeting Apple users with spyware used for surveillance purposes.



In the lawsuit, Apple offers up information on how NSO Group infiltrated the devices of iPhone owners and how it utilized the Pegasus spyware to do so. Apple is asking for a permanent injunction that would ban NSO Group from using Apple software, services, or devices.

“State-sponsored actors like the NSO Group spend millions of dollars on sophisticated surveillance technologies without effective accountability. That needs to change,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Apple devices are the most secure consumer hardware on the market — but private companies developing state-sponsored spyware have become even more dangerous. While these cybersecurity threats only impact a very small number of our customers, we take any attack on our users very seriously, and we’re constantly working to strengthen the security and privacy protections in iOS to keep all our users safe.”

NSO Group created invasive spyware known as “Pegasus” that was sold to various world governments and was used to access the devices of journalists, lawyers, and human rights activists. Apple has been working on fixing exploits and has addressed major Pegasus-related hacks in iOS 14.6 and iOS 14.8.

With iOS 14.8, for example, Apple addressed a zero-click FORCEDENTRY iMessage exploit that could infect iOS devices with the Pegasus software, allowing for access to the camera, microphone, text messages, phone calls, emails, and more. Apple engineers worked around the clock to develop a fix, and additional BlastDoor security protections have been implemented in iOS 15 to protect the Messages app.


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