Tech giant Apple announced on Tuesday it is suing Israel's NSO Group, seeking to block the world's most infamous hacker-for-hire company from breaking into Apple's products, like the iPhone. Apple said in a complaint filed in federal court in California that NSO Group employees are "amoral 21st century mercenaries who have created highly sophisticated cyber-surveillance machinery that invites routine and flagrant abuse." Apple said NSO Group's spyware, called Pegasus, had been used to attack a small number of Apple customers worldwide.

'State-sponsored actors like the NSO Group spend millions of dollars on sophisticated surveillance technologies without effective accountability. That needs to change,' said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering. NSO Group has broadly denied wrongdoing and said its products have been used by governments to prevent terrorism and crime. The company did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday. It's the latest blow to the hacking firm, which was recently blacklisted by the US Commerce Department and is currently being sued by social media giant Facebook.