Security News > 2021 > December > US State Dept employees’ phones hacked using NSO spyware

Apple has warned at least nine US Department of State employees that their iPhones have been hacked by unknown attackers using an iOS exploit dubbed ForcedEntry to deploy Pegasus spyware developed by Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group.

"On top of the independent investigation, NSO will cooperate with any relevant government authority and present the full information we will have," an NSO spokesperson separately told Motherboard.

"To clarify, the installation of our software by the customer occurs via phone numbers. As stated before, NSO's technologies are blocked from working on US numbers. Once the software is sold to the licensed customer, NSO has no way to know who the targets of the customers are, as such, we were not and could not have been aware of this case."

The news of Department of State employees' phones being hacked to install Pegasus spyware comes on the heels of the US sanctioning NSO Group and three other companies from Israel, Russia, and Singapore last month for spyware development and selling hacking tools used by state-sponsored hacking groups.

NSO and Candiru have been added to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security Entity List for supplying the software used by state hackers to spy on government officials, journalists, and activists.

"Specifically, investigative information has shown that the Israeli companies NSO and Candiru developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used this tool to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers," reads the Department of Commerce's final ruling.

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