The controversial spyware Pegasus and its operator, the Israeli NSO Group, is once again in the news. Last week, in documents filed in a judgment between NSO and WhatsApp, they admitted that any of their clients can target anyone with their spyware, including government or military officials because their jobs are inherently legitimate intelligence targets. The lawsuit began in October 2019.

NSO has in the past been very circumspect about who is infected with their spyware, which uses so-called “zero-click” methods meaning that a potential target doesn’t have to click on anything to activate the software. It can access call and message logs, remotely enable the camera and microphone and track the phone’s location, all without any notification to the phone’s owner.

I place the context of the suit in the checkered past of NSO and Pegasus in my latest piece for CSOonline.