Israeli spyware maker NSO says its chief executive has stepped down as the company prepares to restructure
Israeli spyware maker NSO says its chief executive has stepped down as the company prepares to restructure
chief executive officer of Israeli spyware maker NSO . entangled with has stepped down as part of a corporate restructuring, the company announced on Sunday.
NSO has been associated with several scams resulting from alleged misuse by customers of its flagships Pegasus Phone Surveillance Software, Last year, the US banned the company, saying its equipment was used to “conduct international repression”. NSO has denied any wrongdoing.
The company said in a statement that CEO Shalev Hulio, one of its founders, would step down. Yaron Shohat, the company’s chief operating officer, will lead the firm on an interim basis and manage the restructuring process while searching for a new CEO.
A company official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss restructuring efforts, said Mr Hulio has to stay with the company. The official said 100 employees, or about 13% of the NSO workforce, would be sacked.
Pegasus allows operators to stealthily attack a target’s mobile device, giving them access to contacts, messages and movement history.
The company says that Pegasus is Sold to foreign governments only after approval by Israel’s Ministry of Defense As a tool to catch criminals and terrorists.
It says it has safeguards in place to prevent abuse, but critics say these safeguards don’t go far enough and NSO has acknowledged that it cannot control what its customers monitor. It says that it does not have access to the information it has collected.
Critics, including human rights groups and outside researchers, say clients have misused Pegasus to keep tabs on journalists, rights activists and political dissidents from Mexico to Saudi Arabia to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
NSO does not identify its customers. But the company has admitted to cutting off at least seven customers for abusing its technology. These reportedly include officials from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Mexico.
Sunday’s statement said the firm’s restructuring would “examine all aspects of its business, including streamlining its operations to ensure NSO is the world’s leading high-powered organization with a focus on NATO-member countries”. -Tech is one of the cyber intelligence companies.”
NSO is also facing lawsuits from Apple and Facebook, accusing the Israeli firm of breaching their products.
The US Commerce Department’s decision to add NSO to its “entity list” hurt the company by limiting its access to US components and technology. NSO is challenging the designation.
The company has also been hurt by Israel’s decision late last year to strengthen oversight of cyber esports. The decision, made in the wake of criticism that Israel’s oversight of the digital surveillance industry was too loose, has reduced the number of countries that can buy Israeli cyber software from 100 to 37.