QResear.ch

#23832987 at 2025-11-09 19:04:53 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #29039: YOUR MILLION$ Cremation Of ObamaCare Edition

Ex-Trump Ambassador to Israel David Friedman Named NSO Chairman, as Spyware Firm Shifts to U.S. Ownership

Move comes after months of failed lobbying to lift U.S. sanctions ? NSO's founders no longer hold any stake in the company ? Lawyer linked to Israeli minister, Shin Bet chief appointed director

NSO Group announced on Sunday that David Friedman, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel during the first Trump administration, has agreed to become executive chairman of the embattled spyware firm, as a group of American investors assumes full ownership.
The appointment marks the end of an era for the Israeli offensive cyber company: NSO's three founders - Shalev Hulio, Omri Lavie, and Niv Karmi - no longer hold any stake in the company that the latter two built into one of the most controversial Israeli firms to emerge in the last two decades, transforming it into a symbol of Israel's offensive cyber industry and Netanyahu's use of defense exports in the service of diplomacy.
Until this month, Lavie still served as chairman after taking it upon himself to try to rehabilitate the company, dissolving his historic partnership with Hulio, who has since become active in the defensive cyber sector through a successful company called Dream Security.

The NSO announcement comes after years of attempts by lobbyists and Israeli figures to persuade American officials, and in recent months the Trump administration, to lift the sanctions imposed by the previous administration on the firm as part of its attempt to reign in the global spyware industry.

As Haaretz revealed, the contacts included outreach to Jared Kushner, senior officials connected to the Abraham Accords, and even direct approaches from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office. All these efforts bore no fruit. Now, sources involved in the matter say, the company has concluded that if it wants to succeed in operating again in the U.S., it must lead a transformation: new management and new ownership.

The American sanctions, alongside heavy legal costs in legal battles with Meta and Apple, put a massive financial strain on the company, which serves clients across the globe, including in the EU, but has accumulated a growing debt. Market changes in the cyber industry, such as the enormous costs required to maintain the vulnerabilities that enable spyware like Pegasus to successfully hack into devices, have increased, and there were concerns that the company would not be able to withstand the pressure much longer.
The debt acquisition by a new and unknown group of investors is a sign of change and led to Lavie's ouster and eventually the appointment of Friedman. Sources at the company note that additional appointments are expected.
"The company's most important asset is you - the employees of NSO," Friedman told company employees, according to NSO's press release, testimony to an attempt to project business-as-usual and stability.
"The researchers and engineers of NSO belong to the outstanding group of Israeli high-tech," said Friedman, a Jerusalem resident who holds American citizenship. In the past, he raised funds for Israeli settlements and is considered pro-settlement, even though he does not live on one at the moment.
He emphasized in his statement that the company works to create a "safer" world. According to him, NSO's technologies have been vital in preventing terror attacks and serious crime worldwide.

More
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2025-11-09/ty-article/.premium/ex-trump-ambassador-to-israel-named-nso-chairman-as-spyware-firm-shifts-to-u-s-ownership/0000019a-68f4-da41-a9fe-79f7966f0000

https://archive.li/13m7w

#19744293 at 2023-10-16 02:07:49 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #24243: Steady Course Edition

>>19744280



"That may be true, but NSO Group itself goes by a string of other names, including Q Cyber Technologies in Israel and OSY Technologies in Luxembourg. It has a North American wing called Westbridge. Its employees are spread out internationally. Israeli media have reported on company's links to shell companies and byzantine deals. Over the years, it has operated a confusing network of other companies around the world, and this corporate maze has made it nearly impossible to understand its dealings and actions-a crucial task when hacking tools can be abused by authoritarian governments with devastating consequences."


https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/19/1007337/Shalev-Hulio-nso-group-spyware-interview/

#17902879 at 2022-12-07 18:47:21 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #21939: 81st anniversary of the attack on #PearlHarbor Edition

Beleaguered NSO Group said pleased by Netanyahu's return, eyes renewed Saudi deals

Report says spyware firm faced serious hardship, with West shunning it over rights concerns, Israel curbing exports; now said hoping for Likud leader's help, Riyadh normalization

Shaken by past crises and short of customers and revenue, the notorious NSO Group is pleased about the expected imminent return of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, believing he will loosen restrictions on Israeli spyware exports to countries with problematic human rights records, chief among them Saudi Arabia, a report said Tuesday.

The Financial Times cited multiple sources in its report, which said the Israeli company that developed the controversial Pegasus tracking software is in danger of failing, having been embroiled in rights scandals around the world, shunned by the United States and increasingly by Europe as well, and facing increased Israeli measures that hamper its ability to sell its products to non-democratic countries.

"Don't worry, Netanyahu is coming back," the beleaguered firm's co-founder Shalev Hulio reportedly told guests at a dinner party in Tel Aviv, several months before the right-wing Likud party leader indeed triumphed in last month's elections.

Netanyahu, who was prime minister in 1996-1999 and also from 2009 to 2021, is expected to swear in a new government in the coming weeks.

The British news outlet cited multiple unnamed knowledgeable sources saying that as prime minister, Netanyahu nurtured intelligence software exports by using them as carrots as he sought to improve Israel's clandestine security ties with countries like Saudi Arabia, India, and nations in the Gulf region and in East Africa.

After securing normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan - brokered by former US president Donald Trump - Netanyahu has been open about his desire to reach a similar deal with Saudi Arabia.

The kingdom became "one of NSO's largest clients" in 2017, Financial Times reported, but the firm was forced to temporarily suspend its Saudi contract in late 2018, after Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in Turkey and the journalist's family claimed Riyadh had used Pegasus to track him.

The report said a new contract with Saudi Arabia was put in place in 2019 "with the direct knowledge of Netanyahu," citing two people familiar with the transaction.

The contract was used to track 36 journalists at the Al Jazeera news outlet, based in regional rival Qatar.

It was reportedly unknown whether the contract is still in effect.

But the report said that "in an attempt to rein in international criticism, the Israeli government put in stringent approvals processes for any new sales for the entire spyware industry... designed to make sales to countries with problematic human rights records extremely difficult" unless with the express approval of the Defense Ministry.

This, coupled with a November 2021 decision by the US Department of Commerce to impose a blanket blacklist on NSO, left only Europe as a potential market for the company, and even there, the past scandals left many nations wary of doing business with it.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/beleaguered-nso-group-said-pleased-with-netanyahus-return-eyes-renewed-saudi-deals/

#17696348 at 2022-10-17 18:59:48 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #21656: Midterms Approaching PA is FLipped Call to Dig on Fetterman Edition

Former Austrian Chancellor and ex-NSO Chief Start Cybersecurity Firm

Former chief executive of the controversial Israeli spyware company NSO Group, Shalev Hulio, has partnered with Sebastian Kurz, Austria's ex-Chancellor who was forced to resign following a corruption investigation last year, to launch the cybersecurity startup "Dream Security".

Hulio stepped down in August from his post at NSO citing internal reorganization. The company is known for producing the notorious Pegasus software which some regimes have used to spy on dissidents, journalists and activists.

NSO's clients include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Hungary and India.

NSO Group was blacklisted by the Biden administration in November 2021 for acting "contrary to the foreign policy and national security interests of the U.S."

Kurz, 36, who was once the world's youngest head of government, confirmed the venture on a Facebook post on Friday saying that "the need to protect critical infrastructure such as energy, water, and healthcare from cyber attacks is growing," and that the novel Tel Aviv based company aims to "offer solutions to protect against such attacks."

Another one of Dream Security's founding members is Gil Dolev, founder and former CEO of Wayout Group, an Israeli intelligence gathering company. According to Times of Israel, Dolev and Hulio's ties go back years; Dolev is the brother of NSO Group president Shiri Dolev, and the Wayout Group was acquired by NSO-affiliated entities.

According to Israeli business daily Globes, Dream Security already raised US$20 million in funding with a group of investors led by Israeli-American venture capitalist Dovi Frances. The company is looking to cater to the European market at this stage.

Globes also reported that Kurz will serve as Dream Security's president and vice president of business development. He told the publication that during his time as the head of the Austrian government, he "witnessed many attacks on governments as well as on manufacturing plants and energy installations."

Dream Security will build artificial intelligence based solutions to detect and respond to cyber incidents as they occur in real time, Globes reported.

Kurz, who was the Austrian Chancellor up until a year ago, made the switch from public to private sector following a corruption probe relating to embezzlement and bribery. He quit his role as the chancellor and politics altogether shortly after the October 2021 investigation, and by the end of December 2021, he was hired by billionaire Peter Thiel's investment firm as a global strategist.

The disgraced ex-Chancellor, who denies any wrongdoing and says he quit his political role to focus on familial duties, was a runner-up in OCCRP's "2021 Most Corrupt Person of the Year" alongside Bashar Al-Assad and Aleksandr Lukashenko.

https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/16899-former-austrian-chancellor-and-ex-nso-chief-start-cybersecurity-firm

#17427346 at 2022-08-22 15:33:09 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #21359: WEF - You Will NEVER Chip our Children! Edition

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/technology/israeli-spyware-company-nso-group-lays-off-100-ceo-steps-dow

Israeli spyware company NSO Group lays off 100, CEO steps down

NSO Group, an Israeli spyware firm, is laying off 100 of its 750 employees. In addition, NSO CEO Shalev Hulio, one of the firm's three cofounders, will step down from his position to deal with convincing the US authorities to remove NSO from the Department of Commerce blacklist and to find a buyer for the spyware firm.

Hulio will be replaced by COO Yaron Shohat, who has also overseen the current cuts and the streamlining process.

This is not the first time that Hulio has stepped down as CEO. In November 2021, Isaac Benbenisti was appointed CEO to replace Hulio, but he quit after just two weeks because NSO was blacklisted by the US Department of Commerce, and Hulio was forced to resume his position to stabilize the company.

The company has been facing a crisis after it was blacklisted by the US last year for selling software to other countries, which had been used to "maliciously attack" government officials, journalists, businesses, activists, academics, and diplomatic personnel.

It was the first time the US government targeted Israeli cyber firms, which are granted export permits by the Israeli Security Ministry.

NSO Group has been embroiled in a seemingly never-ending spate of extremely prominent controversies. Revelations that it sells its powerful Pegasus spyware to authoritarian regimes, that its products have been used to spy on journalists, activists, politicians, and even potentially world leaders, and accusations that it played a role in Jamal Khashoggi's death have put it at the center of international criticism.

After NSO was sanctioned, Israeli authorities debated whether the Israeli government should contact the Biden administration on the company's behalf.

Initially, Israeli authorities decided against it; however, this decision was reversed, and the Israeli government began pressuring the Biden administration on the subject.

"We told the U.S. that they can't destroy NSO and that several bad clients don't mean the company's products and capabilities are no longer needed," a senior Israeli official told Axios.

The Israeli government also urged the Biden administration that before punishing NSO, it should have explained explicitly what needed to be remedied and given the corporation an opportunity to make the modifications.

NSO recruited two legal firms in the US to work on the blacklist problem independently of the Israeli government.

The attorneys filed an appeal with the Department of Commerce and requested a hearing, which has yet to take place.

According to an NSO representative, the correspondence will continue in writing. The White House is not intervening with the regulatory process in which NSO Group is appealing the listing decision, as per a US official.

#15494654 at 2022-01-29 23:23:50 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #19597: Texas Rally Time Edition

NSO chief calls blacklisting by US 'an outrage,' rejects 'hypocritical' criticism

Shalev Hulio says firm has disconnected Pegasus spyware 7 times over misuse; denies it was used against Macron, or in Khashoggi murder: 'I sleep soundly at night. NSO here to stay'

The CEO and co-founder of NSO Group pushed back on criticism of his embattled cyber tech firm amid mounting allegations its Pegasus spyware program has been misused in Israel and across the globe.

Asserting that many of the most serious claims made against the company were untrue, Shalev Hulio said its software had been created to battle terrorism and serious crime, while rejecting its image as a tool mainly used to suppress freedoms around the world.

"It's a cyber weapon. Our first rule was that we would only sell these tools to governments," Hulio said from the company's high-rise office in Herzliya. "Our second decision was that we wouldn't sell to every government - that there were governments that on day one we could see that we must not sell to them... We refused to sell to 90 countries - 90 countries that came and asked, and we said no. We sold to maybe 40."

Hulio called criticism of NSO Group's sale of Pegasus to non-democratic countries "hypocritical," comparing the surveillance technology to military weapons systems.

"There is not one country we've sold to, not one... that the US does not sell to, or that Israel doesn't sell to. So it's a bit hypocritical to say it's okay to sell F-35s and tanks and drones, but it's not okay to sell a tool that collects intelligence," he said.

"If we see that [Pegasus] is being misused, or even suspect it is being misused, we disconnect the system," he said, claiming this had happened seven times over the years.

More
https://www.timesofisrael.com/nso-chief-calls-blacklisting-by-us-an-outrage-rejects-hypocritical-criticism/

Denial and victimization as usual…..

#15311637 at 2022-01-05 05:57:50 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #19366: Quick Bake 1:07 Edition

Government military secretary spotted partying with NSO executives

Military secretary Avi Gil criticized over large, unmasked New Year's gathering, where he was seen alongside NSO CEO Shalev Hulio and the underfire spyware company's spokesman

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's military secretary Brig. Gen. Avi Gil was spotted at a large New Year's party that did not follow the state's COVID regulations - and was seen partying alongside senior executives at the embattled NSO Group.

Channel 12 news reported Tuesday evening that Gil was seen at a gathering organized by the OTD event production company. Gil was criticized for partaking in a large event where masks were not being worn as the Omicron variant has sent daily case rates skyrocketing.

But Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel's Hebrew sister site, also revealed that Gil was partying alongside the founder and other executives from NSO Group, the controversial Israel-based spyware company that is the target of multiple lawsuits and sharp international condemnation.

OTD's co-founder Shai Baron is said to be friends with Gil, and invited him to the party. According to OTD's website, the company's clients include NSO as well as Pfizer, amdocs, Sodastream and other firms.

NSO founder and CEO Shalev Hulio was also seen at the gathering in a video of the event posted on social media by OTD. Oded Hershkovitz, NSO's spokesman, was also present at the event, and even posed for a selfie with Gil. Hershkovitz served for more than 20 years in the IDF and was deputy IDF spokesman.

Hershkovitz and Gil, who are said to be friendly, did not arrive together to the gathering, but met at the party alongside a wide range of other prominent businessmen. The proximity between the prime minister's military secretary and NSO officials is yet another layer in the ties between the company and government officials. One of Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked's closest friends is Shiri Dolev, president of NSO.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/government-military-secretary-spotted-partying-with-nso-executives/

#14901831 at 2021-11-01 22:19:00 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #18850: Enter The Comfefe Edition

AGB1776, [01.11.21 18:14]
[Forwarded from RT News]
[ Photo ]
Pegasus Chief Flies: Notorious Israeli Spyware Firm Founder Resigns

Shalev Hulio will be replaced as the CEO of spyware firm NSO - kind of - as he steps down to allow Iztik Benbenisti to take over. Hulio will now become president and vice chairman of the board.

Hulio will apparently take on a new direction in cyber defense for the firm that's been embroiled in a scandal involving the snooping of world leaders' phones.

Benbenisti has served as the CEO of two major communication companies in Israel.

Subscribe to RT News t.me/rtnews

https://t.me/DNN1776/10048

#14901831 at 2021-11-01 22:19:00 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #18850: Enter The Comfefe Edition

AGB1776, [01.11.21 18:14]
[Forwarded from RT News]
[ Photo ]
Pegasus Chief Flies: Notorious Israeli Spyware Firm Founder Resigns

Shalev Hulio will be replaced as the CEO of spyware firm NSO - kind of - as he steps down to allow Iztik Benbenisti to take over. Hulio will now become president and vice chairman of the board.

Hulio will apparently take on a new direction in cyber defense for the firm that's been embroiled in a scandal involving the snooping of world leaders' phones.

Benbenisti has served as the CEO of two major communication companies in Israel.

Subscribe to RT News t.me/rtnews

https://t.me/DNN1776/10048

#14168696 at 2021-07-21 18:39:18 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #17924: AUDITMcAfee#TeamBritney TIDAL WAVE!!!! Edition

Israeli firm NSO Group spent millions trying to woo the US government and gave huge payments to Washington lobbyists, consultants and lawyers to push its Pegasus spyware software before it was used to hack reporters' phones

The Pegasus Project revealed that NSO Group tapped some of Washington's most influential figures to burnish its image
They included Michael Flynn in the months before he became President Trump's national security adviser
And Rod Rosenstein advised it on a legal case after leaving his post as deputy attorney general
Details emerged amid continuing fall-out from news that the cyberintelligence company helped governments spy on opponents and journalists
NSO Group CEO Shalev Hulio said the claims were 'concerning' and that it was investigating the allegations
Amnesty International and a consortium of media outlets published claims on Sunday that foreign governments were using its software to hack phones
They compiled a list of 50,000 phone numbers that might have been hacked

Ethics filings and company records show how the Israeli cyberintelligence company NSO Group spent millions of dollars on Washington lobbyists, consultants and lawyers as it tried to sell its Pegasus spyware to the U.S. government.

Its parent companies paid $100,000 to Michael Flynn before he became President Trump's national security adviser; it took on the public relations firm cofounded by Anita Dunn, a senior White House adviser; and it relied on the legal and consulting services of a slew of figures with government experience, according to new reports.

The company's activities have exploded into public view during the past week with revelations from a media coalition, called the Pegasus Project, that its software was used by governments to spy on political opponents and journalists

Now it has emerged in the Washington Post that NSO, its founders or allied companies hired some of Washington's most prominent names as they tried to secure government contracts.

The include former heads of the Homeland Security and Justice departments as well as some of the city's most powerful public-relations and law firms.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9806709/NSO-Group-spent-millions-Washington-lobbyists-woo-government-pushed-Pegasus-spyware.html

1/2

#14157604 at 2021-07-20 00:53:24 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #17910: Circling Back Again To Them Nationwide Election Audits Edition

What's Known About NSO Group, the Shadowy Israeli Software Company Behind Pegasus Spyware

A barrage of media reporting has revealed that Pegasus, an advanced type of spyware created by NSO Group, has been used by governments in over a dozen nations to target the cellphones of at least 50,000 people, including politicians, journalists, and activists. But who are NSO Group, the Israeli tech company behind Pegasus? Sputnik investigates.

Years of sporadic reporting on Pegasus exploded into a full-blown international scandal on Sunday, when over a dozen major news outlets from the US, UK, France, Germany, and other countries reported in near unison on the unlawful breach of tens of thousands of smartphones in over a dozen countries around the world by the malicious software.

The powerful spyware, which enables attackers to view all manner of content on a target's phone, including encrypted messages, photos, and GPS location data is also capable of activating microphones and cameras, thereby turning phones into mobile bugs carried by users without their knowledge. The software is virtually untraceable on installation, infecting phones through a so-called zero-click attack, which requires no interaction from the phone's user to install itself and begin sucking out information.
Origins

Created in 2010 and headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, NSO Group first came under international scrutiny in 2016 when it was discovered that spyware it had ostensibly created to fight criminal and terrorist targets was being used by the United Arab Emirates to spy on an activist charged with insulting the country's authorities (forbidden under the Persian Gulf sheikhdom's penal code). The company's reputation took a further hit after it was discovered that its software was used by Saudi authorities during the scandalous 2018 murder of Jamal Kashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

A 2019 investigation by Ynetnews revealed that NSO Group's now infamous Pegasus software was created in 2011. Pegasus's exact origins remain a mystery, and it's not known if the company was able to develop the spyware from scratch, or used technologies created by or for Unit 8200, the shadowy intelligence corps unit of the Israeli Defence Forces from which NSO's three founders hailed.

The "NSO" in NSO Group stands for Niv, Shavel and Omri - Niv Carmi, Omri Lavie, and Shalev Hulio. The three men served in Unit 8200 before founding the company.

Carmi, who also worked at the Israeli prime minister's office, left the company shortly after it was created.

Funding

The company received $1.8 million in founding capital from Eddy Shalev of Genesis Partners, a Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm managing over $600 million in assets, principally in the technology sector, and operating in Israel, the US, China and other markets. Francisco Partners, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, bought a majority stake in NSO Group in 2014 for $120 million, before putting it up for sale for $1 billion in 2017. The firm sold majority control of NSO Group back to Hulio and Lavie in 2019, with the two men receiving assistance in the buy from Novalpina Capital, a London-based private equity firm.

https://sputniknews.com/world/202107191083415522-what-is-known-about-nso-group-the-shadowy-israeli-software-company-behind-pegasus-spyware/

#12030465 at 2020-12-15 01:52:20 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #15358: Onward Into The Storm Edition

https://www.nsogroup.com/

NSO Group

Fuckery afoot

NSO Group Technologies (NSO standing for Niv, Shalev and Omri, the names of the company's founders) is an Israeli technology firm whose spyware called Pegasus enables the remote surveillance of smartphones. It was founded in 2010 by Niv Carmi, Omri Lavie, and Shalev Hulio.[2][3][4] It employed almost 500 people as of 2017, and is based in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, Israel.[1][5][6]

NSO claims that it provides "authorized governments with technology that helps them combat terror and crime".[7] According to several reports, software created by NSO Group was used in targeted attacks against human rights activists and journalists in various countries,[8][9][10] was used in state espionage against Pakistan,[11] and played a role in the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Kashoggi by agents of the Saudi government.[12] In October 2019, instant messaging company WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook sued NSO under the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

The Pegasus spyware is classified as a weapon by Israel and any export of the technology must be approved by the government.[13]

Annual revenues were around US$40 million in 2013 and $150 million in 2015.[2][14] In June 2017, the company was put up for sale for $1 billion by Francisco Partners.[5] Founders Lavie and Hulio, partnering with European private equity fund Novalpina Capital, purchased a majority stake in NSO in February 2019.[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSO_Group

Tech savvy Mexican drug cartels find a new partner: Israeli spyware

Mexican drug cartels are increasingly making use of Israeli spyware as they attempt to stay one step ahead of the government and journalists.

An investigation has found that journalists in Mexico are increasingly falling prey to Israel spyware that is being used by the state apparatus, even falling into the hands of some of the country's most dangerous drug cartels.

The investigation, known as Cartel Project, an initiative coordinated by Forbidden Stories, found that leading Mexican journalist, Jorge Carrasco, has become the latest victim of such Israeli spyware.

NSO Group, is an Israeli based spyware firm synonymous with selling sofware around the world, sometimes to authoritarian countries. NSO has been accused of, among other things, selling the hacking tool to places like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who have used it to spy on regime opponents.

Over the last decade, Mexico has become a lucrative market for technology companies wishing to sell hacking software - the NSO Group is just one of more than 25 private security companies selling this software to Mexico.

When the high profile Mexican journalist Carrasco received a text message to his phone, little did he know that when he clicked the embedded link, the software sucked out the phone's data including text messages.

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/tech-savvy-mexican-drug-cartels-find-a-new-partner-israeli-spyware-42174

Mexican Government Cancels NSO Group Cyber-Surveillance Contract, Launches Corruption Investigation

https://youtu.be/kiv4_2QJmqM

https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2020/05/11/mexican-government-cancels-nso-group-cyber-surveillance-contract/

Israel's NSO: The shadowy firm behind the 'chilling' spyware used to hack WhatsApp and cloud services

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/05/14/israels-nso-shadowy-firm-behind-chilling-spyware-used-hack-whatsapp/

NSO Group Director Served With Trump Officials At US Government Agency

https://forensicnews.net/2020/05/21/nso-group-director-served-with-trump-officials-at-us-government-agency/

#12030287 at 2020-12-15 01:42:21 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #15358: Onward Into The Storm Edition

>>12030240

Mark Warner's Connections to Spyware Firm NSO Group Revealed

U.S. Sen Mark Warner, the Ranking Member of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, has deep connections to a founder of the spyware company NSO Group according to corporate and government documents, open-source information, and sources who spoke to Forensic News, raising questions of a potential conflict of interest.

As the Ranking Member on the committee, Warner is responsible for overseeing the intelligence apparatuses of the U.S. government and investigating potential national security risks posed by malign actors.

The link between Warner and Omri Lavie, an ex-Israeli intelligence officer and one of the three founders of NSO Group (NSO stands for Niv, Shalev, and Omri, the first names of the three founders) lies in Warner's longtime confidant, current business partner, and the former manager of his family's investment office, Nicholas Perrins.
NSO Group

NSO Group is a technology company that was founded in Herzliya, Israel in 2010 by Niv Carmi, Shalev Hulio, and Omri Lavie. Little is known about Carmi, who left the group not long after its founding, but multiple news reports have confirmed that both Hulio and Lavie served in the elite Unit 8200 of Israel's military intelligence arm that collects information otherwise known as "signals intelligence" (SIGINT).

The company is most well-known for its flagship product, Pegasus. The software is able to infiltrate mobile phones and collect information including text messages, emails, and passwords, track the user's location, and in some cases, access the device's microphone and camera. Pegasus is sold to governments around the world upon the license approval from the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

Though NSO Group advertises the spyware as a way for governments and law enforcement agencies to gather intelligence on terrorists and prevent crime, it has very often been utilized by oppressive regimes to spy on political dissidents, journalists, and other innocent citizens.

According to The Citizen Lab, a watchdog group at the University of Toronto that studies surveillance and spyware, people in at least 45 countries have been targeted by Pegasus. One of the governments that purchased the product was Saudi Arabia, which The Citizen Lab concluded - with high confidence - used the software to spy on at least one associate of the late US journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered by Saudi agents. Other journalists in Mexico, Morocco, Bahrain, the UAE, and elsewhere have been infected with the spyware.

"NSO is a next-generation cyber threat because they operate in peacetime and their product is used to target members of the press and civil society in countries where the is a civil conflict or no conflict at all," intelligence and security expert Igor Ostrovskiy told Forensic News. "NSO tech has been used in targeting activists, journalists and in multiple cases lead to the murder of journalists, but this does not stop them from exporting their high-end intelligence kit to places like Mexico."

More
https://forensicnews.net/2020/12/14/mark-warners-connections-to-spyware-firm-nso-group-revealed/

#10441766 at 2020-08-27 20:40:47 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #13363: Kamala Does DC Edition

First Area of UAE-Israel Cooperation: Spying on Dissidents and Journalists

Once again, media outlets reveal Israeli cooperation with Gulf countries in the field of espionage and the sale of special capabilities and expertise that will help Gulf governments track down dissidents. The Israeli NSO company in question is also mentioned in a very important and sensitive topic related to its advanced spyware, "Pegasus," which enables penetration of mobile phones.

This time, the Hebrew newspaper, Haaretz, discussed the issue of Israeli-Gulf cooperation in terms of espionage, stating that the NSO company recently sold programs to opponents like the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf countries. According to what the newspaper on Sunday, deals, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, were carried out through official mediation.

The report came to confirm that the Emirati normalization with Israel was an inevitable result of deep and sensitive cooperation between them.
What is NSO?

An Israeli technology company focuses on electronic intelligence. At the top of its services are to spy on and penetrate mobile phones, and to steal their data. It is founded in 2010 by Neve Carmi, Omri Lavie, and Shalev Hulio, and has about 500 employees at its headquarters in Herzliya near Tel Aviv. Its annual revenue reached about $40 million in 2013 and increased to $150 million by 2015. In June 2017, its owner, Francisco Partners Management, put it up for sale for one billion dollars and the deal completed in 2019.

NSO services are all over the world and deals with many governments, but its name has been associated with countries accused of widespread human rights violations, such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. It sold an old version of its program to the Mexico government in 2012 in order to combat drug trafficking gangs there. However, The New York Times said in 2016, that the authorities used the program to spy on opposed journalists and lawyers.

The New York Times reported that UAE bought programs that helped it eavesdrop on the leaders of neighboring countries and the editor of an Arab newspaper in the British capital. The Israeli government treats its products like any arms exporting company. It requires it to obtain a permit from the Ministry of Defense (the Ministry of War) to export any of its products abroad.

The company claims to provide technical support to the world's governments in order to help them fight terrorism and crime. However, international human rights organizations accuse it of designing and developing programs used in hacking and espionage operations against human rights activists and journalists in many countries.

https://geopoliticsalert.com/uae-israel-spying

#4752184 at 2019-01-14 18:02:11 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #6064: Workweek Beginnings Edition

Israel company admits spying on Emir of Qatar

The CEO of Israeli spyware company NSO Group has admitted that its software was used to spy on the Emir of Qatar.

In an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth this weekend, Shalev Hulio admitted that his company's product was used to spy on Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, as well as Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani.

The interview disclosed that NSO's "Pegasus" software - which can be used to remotely infect a target's mobile phone and then relay back data accessed by the device - was used to intercept phone calls and text messages made by both the Qatari foreign minister and the Emir. These conversations reportedly concerned "hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom to Iran and Hezbollah for the release of several Qataris," some of which was allegedly sent to the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani.

This spying was seemingly undertaken at the behest of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Hulio revealed that the Israeli Defense Export Control Agency (DECA) authorised three deals with the UAE for the sale of NSO software, despite the fact that DECA is only supposed to give authorisation for the "purpose of fighting terrorism and crime".

These deals - allegedly mediated by former senior Israeli defence officials with close ties to a senior Emirati official - raised a total of $80 million in revenue for NSO.

NSO's Pegasus software has come under increasing scrutiny in recent months after the product was revealed to be complicit in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Though Hulio stressed in the interview with Yedioth Ahronoth this weekend that "Khashoggi was not targeted by any NSO product or technology, including listening, monitoring, location tracking and intelligence collection," it appears that Saudi Arabia used NSO software to spy on many of Khashoggi's friends and associates.

US whistle-blower Edward Snowden has been at the forefront of these claims, telling the Israeli newspaper: "I do not pretend that NSO is involved in hacking [directly] into Khashoggi's phone, so their denial does not take us to a different conclusion. The evidence shows that the company's products were involved in hacking into the phones of [Khashoggi's] friends Omar Abdel Aziz, Yahya Assiri, and Ghanem Al-Masarir."

The UAE is also known to have been using NSO's software for some time. In 2016, Citizen Lab and Apple revealed there were attempts to infect an iPhone owned by the Emirati human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor. Mansoor had raised the alarm after receiving suspicious text intended to "bait to get him to click on a link, which would have led to the infection of his Apple iPhone 6 and control of the device through a spy software created by the NSO Group".

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190114-israeli-company-admits-spying-on-emir-of-qatar/

#4726463 at 2019-01-12 18:02:05 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #6031: A Thing Called "Leverage" Edition

NSO founder denies its phone hacking software was used to track Khashoggi

In rare interview, Shalev Hulio says Pegasus only utilized to apprehend terrorists and criminals, says company has recently thwarted several large attacks in Europe

One of the founders of the Israeli cyber-intelligence firm NSO Group on Friday denied his company's cell phone tracking technology was used to target dissident Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the lead up to his murder last year.

"There was no use on Khashoggi, including listening, monitoring, tracking, collecting info with any product or technology of NSO," Shalev Hulio told the Yedioth Ahronoth daily in a rare interview.

Hulio said NSO's phone-tracking software, called Pegasus, is only used against terrorists and criminals, and has lately prevented a number of terrorist plots in Europe.

"In the last half year the company's products have been part of thwarting several large terror attacks in Europe, both with car bombs and suicide bombers," Hulio said.

"I can say in all modesty that thousands of people in Europe owe their lives to hundreds of our company employees from Herzliya," he said.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/nso-founder-denies-its-cellphone-hacking-software-used-to-track-khashoggi/

Interesting they admit to having Vault 7 tech