The US Department of Commerce has ordered American companies to not sell their tech to NSO, citing reports that the group’s Pegasus spyware is used against journalists, government officials, activists, and more. In its press release, the regulator says that the company is being added to the Entity List because its tool threatens “the rules-based international order” when its sold to repressive foreign governments.
Pegasus is a program designed to infect targets without notice, allowing police and intelligence agencies to get access to a phone’s text messages, photos, and passwords, all without leaving a trace. The Washington Post reported in July that the spyware could infect someone’s phone with a single, invisible text message: a…