The New York Times Magazine reports that the NSO Group repeatedly tried to sell the FBI its Pegasus spyware. 

Israel-based NSO has developed a powerful cyberweapon that enables the hacking of any phone in the United States. And the Cyberware company contacted a myriad of US government agencies between 2019 and last summer to sell them the software.

The FBI, the DEA, the Secret Service, and the parts of the U.S. military all held discussions with NSO. In the meantime, state intelligence agencies around the world purchased the spyware.

NSO held demonstrations in Washington of its “Phantom” surveillance tool. And revealed how easy it was to access all the data stored on a phone. 

The latest upgrade to Pegasus spyware works on US phones. And pulls every text, every email, every photo, and all personal contacts from a person’s phone. Pegasus was able to track the infected phone’s location. And could take control of its camera and microphone. 

The Times claimed that the app could “almost instantly transform phones around the world into powerful surveillance tools — everywhere except in the United States.”

There have been reports that the technology was bought by the US government.

The FBI announced that it did not follow through on its procurement of the spyware software. Although their statement claims that investment in such technologies helps to “combat crime.”  And also, apparently, can “protect both the American people and our civil liberties.” 

The FBI may have decided against the purchase of the device-hacking tool because of a series of lawsuits and controversies surrounding the NSO Group. And in 2021 the Pegasus Project came out.

Pegasus Spyware tied to human rights abuses

In a wide-ranging expose, Agnes Callamard, Secretary-General of Amnesty International said, “The Pegasus Project lays bare how NSOs spyware is a weapon of choice for repressive governments seeking to silence journalists, attack activists, and crush dissent, placing countless lives in peril.”

The Pegasus Project was a United Nations report which claims that there has been ongoing surveillance of journalists, dissidents, and human rights activists. And their global investigation included 17 news organizations and over 80 journalists. 

The NSO Group was sued in 2019 by Facebook/Meta over the repeated hacking of its WhatsApp users. The claims were that the spyware vendor's malware hacked at least 1,400 different users. And while most of those hacked were from outside the US, several of the targeted phones were American.

International people around have complained that they are being infected with Pegasus spyware. And this includes members of the Finnish Foreign Ministry.

Jarmo Sareva, Finland's Ambassador for Cyber Security, refused to disclose what data was harvested. And said that Finland’s protocols state that info transmitted by phone must be public or have the lowest level classification.

Reports continue that people working for the UN are having their phones cloned. And a regional director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigator was hacked. 

Lama Fakih, based in Lebanon as the overseer of the US-based group's response for countries including Syria, Israel, Myanmar, and Ethiopia, was targeted five times last year, an HRW report said.