More Spyware, Fewer Rules: What Trump’s Return Means for US Cybersecurity
WiredNov 14
Depositions: NSO Group, Not Government Clients, Operates NSO Spyware
Image copyright: Omar Marques/Contributor/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The Facts
Sworn depositions from a lawsuit between Meta-owned WhatsApp and Israeli spyware firm NSO Group show that NSO is the one that "installs and extracts" people's mobile phone data, not its government clients.
WhatsApp, which first sued NSO in 2019 over allegations that its Pegasus software hacked 1.4K users, said NSO admitted to "extracting and decompiling WhatsApp's code" and "reverse-engineering WhatsApp" to bypass security measures and insert "zero-click" spyware.
The Spin
Narrative A
The US government has been on the right track over the last four years — from Pres. Biden's blacklisting of NSO Group to Congress requiring incident reporting regulations. However, the incoming Trump administration appears to be extremely friendly with Israel, which means these bans and regulations could go out the window come January. Protecting sovereign citizens from the prying eyes of intel agencies and private firms should be a bipartisan effort.
Narrative B
Spyware companies like NSO have led to justified public backlash, but that shouldn't result in an outright ban on these technologies. While Western governments are at the forefront of the fight to restrain malicious spyware schemes, they also need access to these tools to combat adversarial regimes and nonstate actors, especially terrorists. International treaties are already being built to ensure a happy medium, which is the path the world should stick to.