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Israeli spyware maker NSO Group confirms acquisition by American investors

Sunday, 12 October 2025 8:49 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 12 October 2025 9:11 AM ]

The NSO Group company logo is displayed on a wall at one of their branches in the southern Israeli Arava valley near Sapir community center on February 8, 2022. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

Israeli spyware maker NSO Group, which has developed the infamous Pegasus spyware, has confirmed its acquisition by American investors.

“An American investment group has invested tens of millions of dollars in the company and has acquired controlling ownership,” NSO spokesperson Oded Hershowitz told TechCrunch on Friday.

“This investment does not mean that the company is moving out of Israeli regulatory or operational control,” Hershowitz said.

“The company’s headquarters and core operations remain in Israel. It continues to be fully supervised and regulated by the relevant Israeli authorities,” he added.

Hershowitz’s announcement came shortly after another outlet had reported a group led by Hollywood producer Robert Simonds had agreed to purchase NSO Group in a deal valued in the tens of millions of dollars.

The Guardian reported in 2023 that Simonds and William ‘Beau’ Wrigley had agreed to acquire the assets of NSO back then.

Leaked: Israel attempted to obstruct US lawsuit against Pegasus spyware

Leaked information has indicated that Israel attempted to obstruct a US lawsuit concerning the Pegasus spyware.

NSO Group has been mired in scandal since its inception in 2010. However, the firm is primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance of smartphones. Pegasus is one of the world’s most notorious hacking tools.

Advocates of human rights in international groups across the globe have for years documented dozens of cases where NSO’s clients targeted and hacked journalists, dissidents, and human rights defenders in India, Mexico, Morocco, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, among others.

The Israeli firm claims that its spyware is designed not to target US phone numbers, but in 2021, a dozen US government officials were targeted by its spyware while on a mission abroad.

Consequently, the US Commerce Department banned American companies from trading with NSO.

A senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, who has helped investigate abuses of NSO’s spyware for a decade, told TechCrunch he is concerned that the acquisition of the notorious Israeli firm by the new American investors might lead to its removal from the blacklist of banned firms.

“NSO is a company with a long history of going against American interests and supporting the hacking of American officials. In what world can such a person be trusted to properly oversee a company like NSO Group?” said John Scott-Railton, referring to Simonds, a Phoenix-born billionaire film producer.

“Going further, my real concern is that NSO has strenuously tried to enter the United States and sell their product to American police forces in US cities. This dictator tech does not belong anywhere near Americans, or our constitutionally protect[ed] rights or freedoms.”

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