(Jerusalem) The Israeli company of NSO, maker of the controversial Pegasus spy software, announced on Sunday a “reorganization” of its activities, the departure of its CEO and its desire to refocus its sales on NATO member countries.
Posted at 11:17 a.m.
“NSO group today announces a reorganization of the company and the departure of CEO Shalev Hulio, replaced by Yaron Shohat, current director of operations who will preside over the reorganization,” the company said in a statement sent to AFP.
NSO did not confirm these figures, but indicated on Sunday “reorganizing all of its activities”, “streamlining its operations” in order to “remain one of the largest cybertech companies in the world” and concentrate its sales “to the member countries of NATO”.
In the summer of 2021, NSO found itself in the spotlight after a media consortium revealed that the phone numbers of at least 180 journalists, 600 politicians, 85 human rights activists and other 65 business leaders had been spied on via its Pegasus software.
This computer tool, considered a “weapon” by the Israeli defense which must give the green light to its export, allows for example to remotely activate the cameras and microphones of a smart phone.
The NSO firm has since repeated these revelations, and others that followed, that it had obtained licenses to export its software and that the latter, intended for counter-terrorism and the fight against crime, could have been “hijacked” from its use by some customers.
But these revelations and a debt contracted beforehand by the group have amputated its cash threatening until the survival of this flagship Israeli cybertech company, according to court documents consulted at the beginning of the year by AFP.
The documents revealed an internal battle over which countries the group should sell its technology to, with some creditors saying they did not object to its sale to so-called “high risk” countries because of their compliance record. human rights, to avoid losing money.
According to these documents, Berkeley Research Group (BRG), an American management firm which manages the majority of the group’s shares, opposed it, insisting on the priority for NSO to get out of the American blacklist of companies threatening state security. on which it was placed in November.