Have their capabilities been overplayed? Is selling done under pressure? Are they not actually sitting on big bank and procurement network of valuable 0days?
They only cost a few million dollars to find or just buy and last I checked, a few years ago, there are multiple brokers each with tens in stock.
With that much prevailing stock, you do not run the risk of suddenly not having a supply, so you do not even need to keep a material hoard for yourself. They probably just had like 3-5 at any one time with a in-house team only requiring a few million a year in funding to keep up with the expected churn. If they got more churn than expected, then they buy them retail to keep their product working.
So even if we go with 9 M$ per 0-day (which is a multiple of actual cost), we would only expect them to have like 50 M$ in “assets” and a “procurement network/exploit factory” capable of keeping up with “depreciation” on-average.
Seems pretty reasonable to be under 100 M$. If we went with more reasonable numbers, it would not even be that weird if it was less than 20 M$ for over 50% even at their peak.
People have the mistaken belief that total security compromises are challenging or expensive leading them to the mistaken belief that these companies must be valuable with valuable assets and high revenue.
Hacking-for-hire is barely more than a commodity, like aluminum smelting. There are capital costs, you need technology and expertise, but it is highly fungible leading to lots of suppliers competing on cost and quality of service (turn key, white-glove, etc.) Hell, it is even cheaper to get into and stay on top than aluminum smelting since the capital costs are so much lower.
I think so, but also while they're known as creating 0days, I think they do much more than that, and a lot of it is mundane in comparison.
Probably a big departure from their glory days anyway.
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/meet-nso-group-go-company-human-r...
But on a more serious note, I'm sure a Hollywood producer will bring much needed change to the company.
Its more beneficial to report the amount for taxes, how much you wind up paying is a separate matter, but you need to report it to create the deductions
Apple pays 2m for 0-days now, but I bet kings pay better yet.
History has documented what sort of player they are, I suppose it says something of the times that they still operate/proliferate with impunity.
Software exploits are not munitions and are not controlled, they are not illegal to find, they are illegal to use, hence why there is a market for selling them to sovereigns who have immunity from criminal liability
Shifting liability until it reaches the end user who has no liability or takes the risk
Under the hood there could be anything, we only know just the surface of information that they purposefully let reach the surface. If there was a valid motivation to make it appear as a billion dollar acquisition, I’m sure there’d have been a way to make it appear as such.