NSO Should Lose Spyware Case for Discovery Violations, Meta Says
news.bloomberglaw.com
news.bloomberglaw.com
NSO, Cellbrite, all the good spyware/malware used by governments and connected rich come from Israel companies. The FBI, CIA, and local PD's certainly keep them on speed dial when they need into someone's phone for a legal matter like someone shooting at an orange on stage. Like Diddy said, can't stop, won't stop - cops still need an easy instahack button, and they provide them readily to the highest bidders.
Lots of Israeli "Gartner-rated" "Enterprise Security" vendors like Checkpoint, Radware, Cato Networks, etc too. You wonder if they sell the sickness in one hand, and the cure in another.
NSO was sanctioned by Commerce in 2021. A local PD doing business with them would be akin to doing business with a sanctioned Russian or Iranian entity.
This is why arms control agreements are basically useless.
Not exactly.
The Offensive Security companies like NSO Group are viewed as fairly scummy as well in Israel, but damn if they don't pay good. The kind of person who would become leadership at a NSO type company wouldn't become leadership at a Cato.
Lots of Israelis dislike the culture at the offensive security companies which tends to skew very Wild West and toxic (eg. Taking out new hires to strip clubs and lounges), and these companies in turn largely exist in a legal grey area.
The moment the company becomes a liability (eg. NSO Group), it loses political aircover fairly quickly
Heck, Netenyahu's Likud lead an inquiry against NSO Group and it's founders in 2022 (though this was also because Bibi's confidants were allegedly tapped by the intelligence community in Israel by leveraging NSO [0]), though all this fell to the wayside after the Judical Reforms as well as the Oct 7th attacks.
Also, Israel is a very small country where everyone is 2nd or 3rd degree connects with each other, so professional reputations spread very quickly.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/top-israeli-cop-re...
> the court warned it would not feel reluctant to impose sanctions
Ah okay so basically we're doing the ol' "going on your permanent record" treatment. That means nothing to a state sanctioned malware team.
They do [1]. That doesn't affect the supremacy of U.S. law.
> so basically we're doing the ol' "going on your permanent record" treatment
Sanctions in law means punishment [2]. In civil law, "sanctions are usually monetary fines." But Meta may go further in seeking damages in equity, which could range from injunctions on NSO targeting Meta to distribution restrictions in the U.S.
Note that NSO and its leadership are already blacklisted by Commerce [3]. This is the same designation we've put on e.g. Russia and Belarus's militaries [4].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/jul/25/israel-...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_(law)
[3] https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-blacklists-four-compan...
[4] https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2022/04/commerc...
For example knowing that there are few legal options to deal with Russian groups who were doing ransomware attacks on hospitals there was recently a public name and shame campaign that lots of people had this exact kind of response to but the actual way they were looking to impose costs on these groups was by making sure that other crime groups in the country were very aware of who these people were, that they didn’t have any meaningful protection but they did have a lot of crypto money that would be very easy to rob from them. The idea was to put them in harms way since as the theory goes it would cause others to think twice.
Tactics differ obviously depending on the target and what options make sense but this was for a non state backed group who didn’t have anything other than a cyber component to them.
Do you think relatively highly paid individuals don't take foreign vacations?
> [1] That was true for the men released Thursday. Both were arrested on vacation in countries that cooperate with the U.S. Klyushin was arrested in Sion, Switzerland — four people alleged to be co-conspirators remain at large — and Seleznev in Maldives.
[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/us-releases-russian-ha...
Malware companies have openly operated in Israel for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Download_Valley How many extraditions of those guys to America from anywhere have there ever been?
They do pop Russians traveling outside of the CIS country region on vacation[1].
>According to Europol, a suspected LockBit ransomware developer was arrested in August 2024 at the request of French authorities while on holiday outside of Russia.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/police-arrest...
One of my favorite quotes about these hackers in CIS is, "Who cares if you have hundreds of millions of dollars, you are still stuck in Russia or the CIS region for the rest of your life".
True, but the USG has a long memory and holds grudges. Even if they never travel, they have to be confident every future government of the country will have their back. What's the odds the North Korean or Russian regime substantially changes in their lifetimes? Probably higher than the chance a future US administration will stop caring about an outstanding warrant.
“So and so is looking to arrest you, it would really suck if you got deported or put on this ‘vacation’ to France, wouldn’t it?”
Worth paying up, but if you’re willing to pay anything…
So yes. That's exactly what they'll do.
NSO does business via various parent corps, subsidiaries, and other entities around the globe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSO_Group#Overview
Probably not, given NSO has been blacklisted since 2021 [1].
That doesn't mean they don't use NSO's products. But they're buying it secondhand or reverse engineering it. Same as we'd do for e.g. an Iranian drone innovation.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-blacklists-four-compan...
"Punishment has five recognized purposes: deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, retribution, and restitution" [1].
You're describing restitution. We're still on deterrence and incapacitation, i.e. fining NSO so it stays away from America and possibly putting it out of business so it can't keep selling its wares.
[1] https://open.lib.umn.edu/criminallaw/chapter/1-5-the-purpose...
Every victim has family or friends or things they cared about publicly (usually the public presence is the reason they became a victim).
Justice can be found in many ways.