Key Sentence:
- The maker of powerful spyware believed to have hacked into people’s phones worldwide says the company’s accusations are like criticizing carmakers when drunk drivers crash, the BBC reports.
An NSO spokesman told the BBC: “If I am an automaker and now I take a car and drive drunk and hit someone, you don’t go to the automaker, you go to the driver. “We sent the system to the government, we got the proper accreditation, and we did everything legally. “You know, if a customer misuses the system, they are no longer a customer.
“But all demands and fingertips must be addressed to the customer.” The NSO group faced international criticism after journalists were given a list of potential targets suspected of the spyware, including activists, politicians, and journalists. The investigation began because a list of 50,000 phone numbers contained a small number of hacked phones.
Pegasus infects iPhone and Android devices and allows carriers to check messages, photos, and emails, record calls, and secretly activate microphones and cameras. The Israeli company says its software is intended for use against criminals and terrorists and is only available to military, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies from countries with good human rights records.
But a consortium of news organizations, led by French outlet Forbidden Stories, has published dozens of stories based on the list. NSO group says the list was hacked from their Cyprus server. But a company spokesman told BBC News: “First, we don’t have servers in Cyprus.
“Secondly, we have no data about our customers. “And besides, customers are not connected because each customer is separate. “So there shouldn’t be a list like that anywhere.” And the number of potential targets doesn’t reflect how Pegasus works.
“That’s an insane number,” the spokesman said. “Our customers have an average of 100 destinations per year. “We haven’t had a total of 50,000 goals since the company started.” 67 agreed to turn over their banned phones to Forbidden Stories for judicial analysis of the people on the list.