After several media reports on Sunday suggested that Israel-based NSO Group’s software is being used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents, the world's most infamous hacker-for-hire outfit denied the allegations stating that it has no visibility into its customers' data.
Issuing a statement on the report by Forbidden Stories, NSO called it "full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories," and threatened a defamation lawsuit.
"We firmly deny the false allegations made in their report," NSO said.
The company reiterated its claim that it only sells to “vetted government agencies” for use against terrorists and major criminals.
"As NSO has previously stated, our technology was not associated in any way with the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi," the company said.
"We would like to emphasise that NSO sells its technologies solely to law enforcement and intelligence agencies of vetted governments for the sole purpose of saving lives through preventing crime and terror acts," it said.
Critics call those claims dishonest and say repeated abuse of Pegasus spyware highlights the nearly complete lack of regulation of the private global surveillance industry.
From a list of more than 50,000 cellphone numbers obtained by the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories and the human rights group Amnesty International and shared with 16 news organisations, journalists were able to identify more than 1,000 individuals in 50 countries who were allegedly selected by NSO clients for potential surveillance.
They include 189 journalists, more than 600 politicians and government officials, at least 65 business executives, 85 human rights activists and several heads of state, according to The Washington Post, a consortium member.
Pegasus infiltrates phones to vacuum up personal and location data and surreptitiously control the smartphone's microphones and cameras. In the case of journalists, that lets hackers spy on reporters' communications with sources.
(With agency inputs)