Leaked: Israel attempted to obstruct US lawsuit against Pegasus spyware

Israel has gone to great lengths to obstruct a high-stakes US lawsuit that could potentially expose highly confidential information regarding the regime’s Pegasus spyware, one of the world’s most notorious hacking tools, leaked files suggest.

Israeli officials confiscated documents related to the Pegasus spyware from its manufacturer, NSO Group, in a bid to prevent the company from complying with demands from WhatsApp in a US court to provide information about the intrusive technology, said the British media on Thursday.

These documents indicate that these seizures were part of an unusual legal tactic devised by the Israeli regime to prevent the disclosure of details about Pegasus, which Tel Aviv feared could lead to significant diplomatic and security repercussions for the regime.

Pegasus enables NSO clients to secretly install hidden software on smartphones, allowing them to extract messages and photos, record calls, and activate microphones covertly. NSO's clients have included both authoritarian regimes and democratic nations, and the technology has been implicated in human rights abuses worldwide.

NSO has sold its spyware – known as Pegasus – to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Hungary and India among others.

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A digital watchdog discovered spyware linked to the Israeli hacking company NSO Group, which exploited a software flaw in Apple devices.

The spyware also allows its users to monitor conversations, text messages, photos and location, and even encrypted messaging apps such as Signal and WhatsApp. Pegasus can turn phones into remotely operated listening devices.

Since late 2019, NSO has been embroiled in a lawsuit in the US filed by WhatsApp, alleging that the Israeli firm exploited a vulnerability in the messaging service to target over 1,400 of its users across 20 countries within two weeks. NSO rejects the allegations.

The seizure of files and computers from NSO's offices in July 2020, kept secret until now by a strict gag order issued by an Israeli court, sheds new light on the close relationship between Israel and NSO, and the shared interests of the privately owned surveillance company and the country’s security establishment.

The removal of files in July 2020 occurred after talks between Israeli officials and NSO about how to respond to WhatsApp's demands for NSO to disclose internal documents regarding its spyware, prompting questions about potential coordination to withhold certain information from US legal proceedings.

At one point, NSO's lawyer, Rod Rosenstein, a former US deputy attorney general during the Donald Trump administration, reportedly asked one of Israel's US attorneys whether the Israeli regime would intervene to assist in the legal dispute with WhatsApp.

Earlier this month, WhatsApp accused NSO of failing to fulfill its responsibilities to provide internal documents as part of the legal discovery process. This process aims to help WhatsApp gather information crucial for its case and reveal unprecedented details about how NSO's government clients have utilized Pegasus.

Nevertheless, the covert involvement of the Israeli regime has impeded WhatsApp's efforts to compel NSO to provide crucial information. Recently, WhatsApp's lawyers informed the US court that NSO has “only produced 17 internal documents of its own.”

Both Israel and NSO anticipated expansive demands from WhatsApp for confidential internal company documents, including lists of its clients.

US blacklists Israeli spyware company NSO Group

The United States has added Israel

As the discovery process became imminent in the early part of 2020, NSO considered requesting a “blocking order” from the Israeli regime. This order would prevent NSO from disclosing specific information to WhatsApp. A memo outlining this proposal was shared with Israel's justice ministry in April of that year.

Tel Aviv’s actions seem to have significantly affected the case. NSO has contended that its ability to engage in the discovery process has been constrained by several legal restrictions in Israel.

Earlier this month, WhatsApp’s lawyers told the court they had not yet received any documents relevant to Pegasus, accusing NSO of a “continued refusal to meaningfully participate in discovery.”

The US government blacklisted the Israeli company in 2021 for its sale of hacking tools to repressive regimes.

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