Israel freezes spyware exports
Israel's Defense Ministry has taken multiple steps to control the exportation of spyware, but the Pegasus affair continues to grow in Israel and abroad.
Pegasus developer NSO has warned the Israeli financial newspaper Calcalist today that it will take legal action if the outlet does not back away from reports published earlier this morning. Calcalist claims that Pegasus clients were able to erase records of some of their usage of the spyware. Two days earlier, Calcalist revealed a long list of politicians, activists and journalists the police allegedly spied upon by eavesdropping on their phones. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett vowed to get to the bottom of the issue while Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev said he would seek a government commission of inquiry.
Israel's domestic Pegasus affair will not die down anytime soon and will continue to wreck havoc in Israeli politics and democracy while the country is still also grappling with the international Pegasus scandal at great diplomatic cost.
As the body responsible for issuing export licenses for sensitive cyber software (via the Defense Exports Control Agency), the Defense Ministry is the most involved within the cabinet in the international scandal. Defense Minister Benny Gantz has taken most of the heat from international human rights organizations and foreign governments. Eleven days after the scandal exploded in July and it was revealed that Pegasus had been used to hack the phone of French President Emmanuel Macron, Gantz traveled to Paris and met with his French counterpart Florence Parly.
Other Israeli security officials traveled to Paris in the months that followed. Jerusalem proposed conditioning all future sales of cyberattack malware on buyers agreeing not to use it with French mobile numbers. Similar contractural conditions excluding American phones have existed for several years now.
