File – On August 24, 2021, the logo is hung on the wall of a branch office of an Israeli NSO Group company near the town of Sapil in southern Israel. Technology giant Apple announced on Tuesday, November 23, that it is suing Israeli NSO Group. To prevent the world’s most notorious employer company from breaking into Apple products like the iPhone. (AP photo / SebastianScheiner, file)
Washington (AP) —The phone of 11 US State Department employees was hacked using technology from Israel’s NSO Group, the world’s most notorious hacker hiring company, according to someone familiar with the matter.
All employees were in Uganda and included several foreign service officers, said a person who was not allowed to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation. Some of the agency’s local Ugandan employees also seemed to be among the 11 hacked, he said.
It was unclear which individual or entity used NSO technology to hack the account or what information was requested.
Hacking news, first reported by Reuters, arrives a month after the US Department of Commerce blacklists NSO Group and limits its ability to use US technology. And Apple sued NSO Group last week, calling the Israeli company an “immoral mercenary of the 21st century” in an attempt to effectively stop the hacking of all iPhones and other Apple products.
State Department employees were hacked on their iPhone, a person familiar with the matter said.
NSO Group said in a statement that it had terminated “related customer access” to the hacking system, but did not say who the customer was. According to the company, the company’s espionage technology has prevented hacking of US-based phones and is only sold to licensed customers.
“NSO wasn’t aware of this case because it had no way of knowing who the customer’s target was, and it wasn’t,” the company said.
In the proceedings, Apple sent notices around the world to people whose iPhones were hacked in Pegasus in countries ranging from El Salvador to Poland. The target Department of State employees were among them.
Apple declined to comment on Uganda’s hacking on Friday.
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Suderman reported from Richmond, Virginia. Frank Bajak, an AP technical writer from Boston, contributed to this report.
AP Source: State Department Employee Hacked by NSO Group | WGN Radio 720
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