Ukraine’s efforts to strengthen its surveillance capabilities, as well as efforts to strengthen its military, have been supported by the United States, Israel’s closest ally.
But Israeli officials resisted any move that might provoke a confrontation with Russia, whose military was then aggressively helping Syria fight a rebellion beyond Israel’s northeastern border. The country’s defense export control agency dismissed a possibility License that would have allowed NSO Group to offer Pegasus to Ukraine, said people familiar with the decision, which included Western intelligence officials. These people believed that this action took place back in 2019, but the exact timing was unclear.
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Concerns about the Russian response also affected NSO’s dealings with Estonia, a member of NATO, say people familiar with those actions. According to these people, NSO had licensed Pegasus to Estonia, which gained independence from five decades of Soviet rule in 1991 and is known for its aggressive counterintelligence efforts against Russia, but the company later imposed restrictions on the spyware’s use. The exact nature of those restrictions isn’t clear, though Estonia has no ability to target Russian phones, according to people familiar with its Pegasus license.
Although NSO is a private company, Israeli officials have tried for years to align Pegasus distribution with national diplomatic priorities. The website of the Defense Exports Controls Agency, which is part of the national defense ministry, says it “has worked to advance Israel’s national security and defense interests through its licensing responsibilities related to defense equipment, know-how, anti-proliferation and related to the… Preventing damage to Israel’s international relations and national strategic interests.”
NSO officials have long said that Pegasus, which can turn almost any smartphone into a spying device, cannot be used by foreign governments against US +1 numbers or to spy on foreign-numbered phones once they are in the United States . More recently, the company began blocking opportunities from foreign governments to use Pegasus against phones connected to UK mobile networks in August 2020, according to people familiar with the company’s operations.
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But the extent of Israel’s efforts not to anger Russia by restricting the use of Pegasus has not been reported. This article was published jointly by the Washington Post and the British newspaper Guardian.
The Pegasus Project, a global investigative consortium including The Washington Post, The Guardian and 15 other partners, uncovered widespread abuses over the past year targeting politicians, journalists, human rights defenders, diplomats and government officials in numerous countries.
The investigation, led by Paris-based non-profit organization Forbidden Stories, also found that state operators of Pegasus often use Pegasus as an intelligence-gathering tool to surveil targets outside their own borders, in neighboring countries and beyond. NSO’s customers include dozens of countries, including some in western Europe, say people familiar with using Pegasus.
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In the nearly four weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, Israel’s efforts to curb the proliferation of a powerful espionage tool seem newly relevant. Israel’s current Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has taken a softer stance on Russia than other American allies and has sought to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. Israel also reportedly refused last year to sell its Iron Dome missile defense system, developed with US financial support, to Ukraine, according to Israeli newspaper Ynet News.
Israel’s Defense Ministry, which Bennett once headed, acknowledged in a statement Tuesday that it considers a variety of factors when licensing Pegasus. “Policy decisions related to export controls take into account security and strategic considerations, which include compliance with international agreements,” the statement said.
It didn’t directly address most of the questions raised by The Post and The Guardian. US officials did not respond to questions about this story that were asked Tuesday.
The desire of Ukraine to acquire Pegasus and Israel’s reluctance to allow the move was previously reported by Israel’s Channel 12.
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The NSO Group, which was presented with a detailed list of questions, said in a brief statement: “NSO continues to be subject to inaccurate media reports of alleged customers based on hearsay, political innuendos and untruths.”
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister, who oversees digital technology for Ukraine, declined to confirm that his nation had attempted to acquire Pegasus, but acknowledged that the country was seeking Israeli technology.
“The Israeli government is not currently engaging in any discussion or facilitation regarding offensive technology, but we have ongoing discussions with many Israeli companies in the market and they are at various stages,” he said. “But let me say this again: we have the capacity to continue to be successful, and we’re adding new tools every day, including emerging tools.”
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Russia, whose embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment, has treated Ukraine with increasing hostility since the 2014 Maidan revolution pushed the country towards Europe and the West. Russia seized the strategically important Crimean region that year and fueled a separatist movement in the eastern Donbass region that lasted until Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last month.
Estonian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Susan Lillevali declined to comment on the unreported use of Pegasus in her country.
Pegasus can infect almost any smartphone, whether from Apple, Google, Samsung or other companies, via a malicious link embedded in a text message or a so-called “zero-click attack”. Such attacks do not require any action from the phone user and start without any kind of warning.
Once the Pegasus infection begins, system operators can do everything its owner can do – access files, contacts, passwords, photos and videos, or track the current and historical locations of targets. Pegasus operators can also remotely activate cameras or microphones to directly listen to conversations, record videos or eavesdrop on calls.
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The NSO Group has repeatedly stated that Pegasus is intended for use against terrorism and serious crimes such as drug trafficking and that the company is investigating reports of abuse and shutting down nations abusing the system. The company has stated that there are dozens of countries where it will not license Pegasus due to human rights or other concerns.
After the Pegasus project was made public last summer, it was also discovered that Pegasus had been used to attack the phones of American diplomats in Uganda. The Biden administration blacklisted NSO Group in November, depriving it of access to American technology.
Craig Timberg is a technology reporter for the Washington Post. Stephanie Kirchgaessner is a Washington-based investigative reporter for The Guardian. Souad Mekhennet, Ellen Nakashima, and Shane Harris are national security reporters for the Washington Post. Post-Tech reporter Cat Zakrzewski contributed to this report.