NSO Group, a fearsome Israeli spyware vendor, is selling an American company at the worst possible time

It appears that Israel-based NSO Group – a notorious peddler of powerful spyware – has been bought by an American company. It was the news Reported for the first time By Israeli outlet Calcalist and it has been confirmed By TechCrunch.

NSO, which is famous for Pegasus phone hacking malwarehas been at the center of surveillance scandals for years. An investor group led by Hollywood producer Robert Symonds is the new owner of the hack-for-hire company, according to Calcalist. The deal, said to be worth “several tens of millions of dollars,” is expected to be finalized “in the coming days, although its completion will require approval from the Defense Ministry’s Defense Export Control Agency (DECA),” the outlet wrote.

NSO spokesman Oded Hershowitz reportedly told TechCrunch that “an American investment group has invested tens of millions of dollars in the company and has gained controlling ownership.” “This investment does not mean that the company is falling out of Israeli regulatory or operational control,” Hershowitz told TechCrunch. “The company’s headquarters and core operations remain in Israel. It remains fully supervised and regulated by the relevant Israeli authorities, including the Ministry of Defense and the Israeli regulatory framework.” Gizmodo has reached out to NSO Group for comment, and we will update this story when we hear back.

NSO had not only had a tough few years; a contract. As early as 2015-2016, the company was mired in controversy Because of authoritarian governments Who bought their products. By 2018, Amnesty International He was demanding Its employees were hacked using the company’s malware. In 2019, Facebook and WhatsApp filed a lawsuit against NSO, accusing it of exploiting bugs in its messenger code to allow monitoring of the app’s users. The lawsuit Join later By a number of prominent technology companies, including Microsoft, Google, Cisco, Dell, and many more He later argued that Victims of NSO’s spyware should be able to sue the company for privacy violations. In 2021, He was sued by Apple. In the same year, NSO was placed on a federal blacklist that prohibits US companies from providing resources or support to it without formal government approval. Last year he was a judge The company was found liable In the lawsuit filed by WhatsApp.

Throughout this period, a large number continued to exist Of disagreements Involving the company. There have also been attempts by US companies to buy NSO. In 2022, the major American defense company L3Harris I thought about the acquisition from NSO but appears to have been dissuaded from this purchase By the Biden administrationwhich had previously blacklisted the company. It’s unclear what the spyware company’s future will look like under its new American owners, but it ensures the company has a future, and puts the powerful cyber arsenal in US hands — just in time for Trump’s newly formed police state.