Jerusalem: Israeli Defense Minister will on Wednesday share the initial findings of the government’s assessment of the exports of the NSO group with France, whose President is suspected of being spyware targets sold by private Israel spyware companies.
The telephone of President Emmanuel Macron is on a list of targets that may be under supervision by Morocco, which uses Pegasus NSO software, according to the French Le Monde newspaper.
The French leader has called for an investigation.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said he would fly to meet French partners Florence Parly for talks about the crisis of Libanese governance and Iran’s nuclear diplomacy.
“He (Gantz) will also renew the minister about the topic of NSO,” the office was in a statement on Tuesday.
The Ministry of Gantz, which oversees the export of commercial surveillance technology, is part of a high-level task force that assesses Pegasus’s accusations published last week by 17 media organizations, led by a non-profit journalism group based in Paris.
Media organizations said Pegasus had been used in the efforts and hacking of a successful smartphone belonging to journalists, government officials and human rights activists.
NSO has refused reporting, said it was “full of the wrong assumptions and the theory that was not bound”.
Pegasus is intended to be used only by government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism and crime, the company said.
The latest 12 Israeli news channel says Gantz will tell the hosts of his French that, if Israel’s assessment finds pegasus abuse by Morocco, they can be cut off from the system.
Israeli officials did not comment on the report.
The Ministry of Gantz and NSO declined to identify countries that had Pegasus.
One Aide Gantz told Reuters that it would take a “week” for the assessment of the Government NSO to be completed.
Asked whether the Ministry of Defense could increase the supervision of the exports of NSO, Aide said: “Alright.
There is a completely different problem here.” Aide will not be complicated.
NSO said it did not know the specific identity of people towards who the client uses Pegasus, but if it receives the complaint can obtain a list of targets and unilaterally turn off the software for each client found has misused it.