Top tech firms join hands to help WhatsApp in NSO Group hacking

A day after it was disclosed that Israeli intelligence firm NSO Group hacked iPhones of 36 Al Jazeera journalists top tech giants like Microsoft Google Cisco VMware and the Internet Association filed an amicus brief in a legal case brought by Facebookowned WhatsApp against the NSO GroupThe NSO Group is currently embroiled in a legal battle with Facebook which last year accused that the Israeli spyware maker used Pegasus in WhatsApp to infect some 1400 people mostly celebrities journalists and human rights activistsFacebook has submitted detailed proof in the court about the Israeli company and the allegedly hacking into at least 1400 WhatsApp users via its controversial surveillance softwareTom Burt Corporate Vice President Customer Security and Trust at Microsoft said late on Monday that the NSO Groups business model is dangerousOne of these 21stcentury mercenaries called the NSO Group is attempting to cloak itself in the legal immunity afforded its government customers which would shield it from accountability when its weapons inflict harm on innocent people and businesses he emphasisedBurt said that private companies should remain subject to liability when they use their cybersurveillance tools to break the law or knowingly permit their use for such purposes regardless of who their customers are or what theyre trying to achieveThats why today we filed an amicus brief iumliquestfrac12 along with Cisco GitHub Google LinkedIn VMWare and the Internet Association in a legal case brought by WhatsApp against the NSO Group he saidWe hope that standing together with our competitors today through this amicus brief will help protect our collective customers and global digital ecosystem from more indiscriminate attacksResearchers from Canadabased Citizen Lab have revealed that the Pegasus spyware compromised iPhones of dozens of journalistsIn July and August this year government operatives used NSO Groups Pegasus spyware to hack 36 personal phones belonging to journalists producers anchors and executives at Al JazeeraThe personal phone of a journalist at Londonbased Al Araby TV was also hacked said researchers in a report that came out on SundayThe NSO Group sold Pegasus to governments which could be installed on a device simply by calling the device via WhatsApp and the devices owner did not even have to answerEven if the tools are sold to governments who use them for narrowly targeted attacks there are a variety of ways they can still fall into the wrong hands said BurtAccording to him privatesector companies creating these weapons are not subject to the same constraints as governmentsPrivate actors like the NSO Group are only incented to keep these vulnerabilities to themselves so they can profit from them and the exploits they create are constantly recycled by governments and cybercriminals once they get into the wildThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever