In short, it adds another significant element to the cybersecurity threat landscape.”Ī senior executive at Paragon, who declined to comment on the record, told Forbes that he did not want to talk about its products. First, it adds even more capability to the leading nation-state attackers, and second, it generates cyberattack proliferation to other governments that have the money but not the people to create their own weapons. Even before the Pegasus Project, Microsoft president Brad Smith warned the $12 billion industry as a whole represented a threat, writing: “An industry segment that aids offensive cyberattacks spells bad news on two fronts. The French government has already begun its investigation, but other administrations around the world are now being called on to probe just who was hacked by NSO’s spyware and why. The company’s CEO has rebuffed the claims made by the Project’s partners, saying it had no evidence that its tools were used to target those named in reports, from the wife of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi to French president Emmanuel Macron.
The Pegasus Project, a coalition of nonprofits and global publications, this month claimed to have uncloaked worldwide surveillance of journalists, lawyers and high-profile elected politicians by clients of Israel’s best known spyware provider NSO Group. The startup, founded in 2019, is quietly building up steam at a time when its ilk in the smartphone hackers-for-hire industry are under heavy fire. One other spyware industry executive said it also promises to get longer-lasting access to a device, even when it’s rebooted. Paragon’s product will also likely get spyware critics and surveillance experts alike rubbernecking: It claims to give police the power to remotely break into encrypted instant messaging communications, whether that’s WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook Messenger or Gmail, the industry sources said. According to two senior employees at companies in the Israeli surveillance industry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the venture capital business put in between $5 and $10 million, though Battery declined to comment on the nature of its investment, which is only mentioned in brief on the company’s website. They also have a significant American financial backer: Boston, Massachusetts-based Battery Ventures. Also on the board is cofounding director and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. The other cofounders - CEO Idan Nurick, CTO Igor Bogudlov and vice president of research Liad Avraham - are ex-Israeli intelligence too. But it does have a cofounder, director and chief shareholder that will turn heads: Ehud Schneorson, the former commander of Israel’s NSA equivalent, known as Unit 8200.