Hackers attacked American diplomats who were studying the situation in Uganda
The iPhones of at least nine employees of the US State Department were hacked using equipment created by the Israeli company NSO Group. This is reported by Reuters with reference to four sources.
According to them, the hackers were targeted by department employees who either worked at the US Embassy in Uganda or dealt with issues related to the situation in that country. At the same time, it has not yet been possible to determine who exactly was behind the hacking of smartphones.
In response to this, the NSO Group reported that they had no data that the equipment of the Israeli company was used for the hacker attack. They promised to conduct an investigation, and in case of confirmation of the information, to permanently cease cooperation with the perpetrators. The NSO Group also stated that they are interested in cooperation with all governments and are ready to provide the necessary data.
According to Bloomberg, the fact of hacking was confirmed by Apple, which sent appropriate notifications to the victims.
The State Department has so far refused to comment on the Reuters information, but clarified that the US Department of Commerce has recently placed the NSO Group on its blacklist, which should make it difficult for American companies and departments to cooperate with it. The Foreign Ministry explained this by the fact that the Israelis had previously supplied their equipment to foreign governments, which used it to spy on officials, journalists, public figures, scientists, and employees of diplomatic missions.
On November 24, it became known that Apple had filed a lawsuit against the NSO Group. The company is seeking a permanent ban for NSO Group to use any of its software.
In July, there was information that the software developed by NSO Group was used to spy on the owners of 1 thousand phone numbers. However, there was no confirmation of these data from the government authorities.
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