Pegasus Spyware: NSO Group Responds to Latest False Forbidden Stories Allegations

Regarding the publication of false allegations by a consortium of media outlets, an NSO Group spokesperson said:

“The list is not a list of Pegasus targets or potential targets.

“The numbers in the list are not related to NSO group in any way.

“Any claim that a name in the list is necessarily related to a Pegasus target or potential target is erroneous and false.”

News posted on the company’s website reads, “The report by Forbidden Stories is full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories that raise serious doubts about the reliability and interests of the sources. It seems like the “unidentified sources” have supplied information that has no factual basis and are far from reality”.

“After checking their claims, we firmly deny the false allegations made in their report. Their sources have supplied them with information which has no factual basis, as evident by the lack of supporting documentation for many of their claims.

In fact, these allegations are so outrageous and far from reality, that NSO is considering a defamation lawsuit.

NSO Group has a good reason to believe the claims that are made by the unnamed sources to Forbidden Stories, are based on misleading interpretation of data from accessible and overt basic information, such as HLR Lookup services, which have no bearing on the list of the customers targets of Pegasus or any other NSO products. Such services are openly available to anyone, anywhere, and anytime, and are commonly used by governmental agencies for numerous purposes, as well as by private companies worldwide.

The claims that the data was leaked from our servers, is a complete lie and ridiculous, since such data never existed on any of our servers.

As NSO has previously stated, our technology was not associated in any way with the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi. We can confirm that our technology was not used to listen, monitor, track, or collect information regarding him or his family members mentioned in the inquiry. We previously investigated this claim, which again, is being made without validation.

We would like to emphasize that NSO sells it technologies solely to law enforcement and intelligence agencies of vetted governments for the sole purpose of saving lives through preventing crime and terror acts. NSO does not operate the system and has no visibility to the data.

Our technologies are being used every day to break up pedophilia rings, sex and drug-trafficking rings, locate missing and kidnapped children, locate survivors trapped under collapsed buildings, and protect airspace against disruptive penetration by dangerous drones. Simply put, NSO Group is on a life-saving mission, and the company will faithfully execute this mission undeterred, despite any and all continued attempts to discredit it on false grounds”.

About NSO Group

NSO Group is a leading technology developer that licenses software solutions to governments and law enforcement agencies to investigate and prevent terror acts, fight crime and increase public safety. NSO’s products have been successfully used to:

• Prevent terrorism, including gun violence, car bombs, and suicide bombers at transportation hubs, public parks, markets, concert venues, sports arenas, and other public areas
• Break up child exploitation, sex- and drug-trafficking rings, and money-laundering operations
• Find and rescue kidnapped children
• Assist emergency search-and-rescue (SAR) teams in locating survivors trapped under collapsed buildings in the wake of natural disasters or construction failures

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