{"id":1406787,"date":"2022-03-29T08:16:53","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T12:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1406787"},"modified":"2022-03-29T08:17:01","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T12:17:01","slug":"nso-says-israeli-police-got-weaker-variant-of-pegasus-phone-hacking-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/nso-says-israeli-police-got-weaker-variant-of-pegasus-phone-hacking-tool\/","title":{"rendered":"NSO says Israeli police got \u2018weaker\u2019 variant of Pegasus phone hacking tool"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnso-says-israeli-police-got-weaker-variant-of-pegasus-phone-hacking-tool%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1406787&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/2022-03-29T111737Z_3_LYNXNPEI2S0IM_RTROPTP_0_ISRAEL-CYBER-NSO_1.jpg\" alt=\"The logo of Israeli cyber firm NSO Group is seen at one of its branches in the Arava Desert, southern Israel\" \/><br \/>FILE PHOTO: The logo of Israeli cyber firm NSO Group is seen at one of its branches in the Arava Desert, southern Israel July 22, 2021. REUTERS\/Amir Cohen<\/div>\n<p>March 29, 2022<\/p>\n<p>By Dan Williams<\/p>\n<p>JERUSALEM (Reuters) \u2013     The chief of Israeli spyware firm NSO Group said on Tuesday it had sold the country\u2019s police a variant of the Pegasus hacking tool that can access local cellphones, but which he described as being \u201cweaker\u201d than the export version.<\/p>\n<p>Unsourced media reports last month of warrantless wiretaps by Israeli police using Pegasus added a domestic dimension to long-running allegations that the tool was abused by foreign governments against reporters, rights activists and politicians.<\/p>\n<p>The police have denied any wrongdoing. An inquiry appointed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, which consulted NSO\u2019s logs of client surveillance targets, found the reports to be without merit.<\/p>\n<p>Shalev Hulio, co-founder and chief executive of NSO, told Tel Aviv radio station 103 FM that Israeli police had bought \u201cnot Pegasus, but a system called \u2018Saifan\u2019 \u2013 in essence, a weakened version of Pegasus \u2026 with lesser capabilities, fewer means of operating\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He did not elaborate. <\/p>\n<p>Israeli media have reported that the hacking tool used by police is designed to allow real-time eavesdropping, whereas Pegasus also provides access to past correspondence stored on cellphones. Reuters could not independently confirm this.<\/p>\n<p>Hulio said NSO had shared with the government inquiry its \u201caudit trail log\u201d of Israelis targeted by police using the company\u2019s spyware. That implicitly acknowledged that \u201cSaifan\u201d could hack Israeli cellphones \u2013 something NSO has long asserted cannot be done with Pegasus. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cPegasus has a protective mechanism that prevents it being used against Israeli numbers,\u201d Hulio said. \u201cEvery package ever sold to a client abroad cannot in any way be used against Israeli numbers. That\u2019s how Pegasus is built.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NSO says all its sales are approved by Israel\u2019s government and are intended to prevent terrorism and crime. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cSaifan\u201d is Hebrew for the gladiolus flower, the avocet bird or the green swordtail fish.<\/p>\n<p> (Writing by Dan Williams; editing by Jason Neely)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FILE PHOTO: The logo of Israeli cyber firm NSO Group is seen at one of its branches in the Arava Desert, southern Israel July 22, 2021. REUTERS\/Amir Cohen March 29,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1406787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1406787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1406787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1406787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1406787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}