The IT Nerd

From the “I didn’t see that coming” department comes this press release that just got posted on Apple’s website where they announce that they are suing The NSO Group. You might know them as the purveyors of the Pegasus spyware that nation states have been using to spy on opponents, journalists, dissidents among other targets. Here’s why Apple is doing this:

Apple today filed a lawsuit against NSO Group and its parent company to hold it accountable for the surveillance and targeting of Apple users. The complaint provides new information on how NSO Group infected victims’ devices with its Pegasus spyware. To prevent further abuse and harm to its users, Apple is also seeking a permanent injunction to ban NSO Group from using any Apple software, services, or devices.

NSO Group creates sophisticated, state-sponsored surveillance technology that allows its highly targeted spyware to surveil its victims. These attacks are only aimed at a very small number of users, and they impact people across multiple platforms, including iOS and Android. Researchers and journalists have publicly documented a history of this spyware being abused to target journalists, activists, dissidents, academics, and government officials.

And on top of that, Apple is going to help the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab to fight The NSO Group:

Apple will also support the accomplished researchers at the Citizen Lab with pro-bono technical, threat intelligence, and engineering assistance to aid their independent research mission, and where appropriate, will offer the same assistance to other organizations doing critical work in this space.

While I applaud Apple in taking on The NSO Group in such a forceful manner, one wonders if this will have any effect. After all, The NSO Group has a business model that is purely around supplying spyware to states to do whatever they want with. A lawsuit like this may not change that. Which is why I hope that governments around the world take action against The NSO Group to make this business model unacceptable. But until that happens, I applaud Apple.

This entry was posted on November 23, 2021 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.