Israeli spyware developer NSO Group, already under fire for allegedly providing the software used to spy on Jamal Khashoggi before his murder, is now being pursued by multiple US tech giants for its sale of hacking tools to foreign governments. The software was allegedly used to hack the mobile phones of journalists, diplomats and human rights workers.
Ha’aretz reports that Israeli fingerprints are all over the war in Yemen, from cyber spyware to hitmen; Americans are also deeply involved, as well as individuals and companies from other countries…
Fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden, speaking via video link to a group in Tel Aviv, lambasted Israel’s cyber-surveillance industry for the creation of “digital burglary tools that are being actively currently used to violate the human rights of dissidents, opposition figures, and activists,” possibly including Jamal Khashoggi. Ram Ben-Barak, former deputy director of the Mossad who now works in the surveillance industry, then justified the development of such software because Israel uses it to thwart “40 terror attacks a month” in Palestine/Israel.
Israel’s cyber sector is the star of its economy; many of its leaders originally trained with Unit 8200, a top Israeli intelligence unit. Palestine is their “testing lab.”
Mexican and UAE investigative journalists and human rights defenders have had their smartphones hacked by a secretive Israeli-made system. An infected phone gives the perpetrator access to movements and location, emails, WhatsApp messages, and passwords, and can even turn on the phone’s camera and microphone.