Apple sues NSO Group over spyware claims
Apple will share all awarded damages and $10 million to support groups that help highlight cyber-surveillance abuses
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Applehas filed a lawsuit against the Israeli NSO Group holding it accountable for circumventingiPhonesecurity mechanisms in order to surveil Apple users via its Pegasus spyware.
NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware came into limelight earlier this year in July, when Amnesty International revealed that it wasused to spyon journalists and human rights activists worldwide.
This was followed by afurther revelationbycybersecuritythreat researchers at Citizen Lab who found evidence of surveillance oniPhone 12 Pro’s of nine Bahraini activists, through an exploit that evaded the latestsecurity protections in iOS 14known asBlastDoor.
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“State-sponsored actors like the NSO Group spend millions of dollars on sophisticated surveillance technologies without effective accountability. That needs to change,”saidCraig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering.
Cyber-surveillance research
Citizen Lab hadaccused the NSO Groupof using two zero-click iMessage exploits, including a newBlastDoorexploit that the researchers have dubbed FORCEDENTRY. Apple says it has shared new information on this now-patched exploit in its legal complaint.
In its release, Apple has commended the efforts of groups like the Citizen Lab and Amnesty Tech “for their groundbreaking work to identify cyber-surveillance abuses and help protect victims.”
Apple has decided to provide technical, threat intelligence, and engineering assistance to the Citizen Lab researchers pro-bono, and has promised to offer the same assistance to other organizations doing critical work in this space.
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In fact, the company has gone to the extent of contributing $10 million, as well as all the damages awarded from the lawsuit, to supporting organizations involved in the advocacy and research of cyber-surveillance abuses.
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With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’sTechRadar Pro’sexpert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.
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