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WASHINGTON\/SAN FRANCISCO: Apple Inc iPhones<\/a> of at least nine U.S. State Department employees were hacked by an unknown assailant using sophisticated spyware<\/a> developed by the Israel-based NSO Group<\/a>, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The hacks, which took place in the last several months, hit U.S. officials either based in Uganda or focused on matters concerning the East African country, two of the sources said.
The intrusions, first reported here, represent the widest known hacks of U.S. officials through NSO technology. Previously, a list of numbers with potential targets including some American officials surfaced in reporting on NSO, but it was not clear whether intrusions were always tried or succeeded.
Reuters could not determine who launched the latest cyberattacks.
NSO Group said in a statement on Thursday that it did not have any indication their tools were used but canceled access for the relevant customers and would investigate based on the Reuters inquiry.
\"If our investigation shall show these actions indeed happened with NSO's tools, such customer will be terminated permanently and legal actions will take place,\" said an NSO spokesperson, who added that NSO will also \"cooperate with any relevant government authority and present the full information we will have.\"
NSO has long said it only sells its products to government law enforcement and intelligence clients, helping them to monitor security threats, and is not directly involved in surveillance operations.
Officials at the Uganda embassy in Washington did not comment. A spokesperson for Apple<\/a> declined to comment.
A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the intrusions, instead pointing to the Commerce Department's recent decision to place the Israeli company on an entity list, making it harder for U.S. companies to do business with them.
NSO Group and another spyware firm were \"added to the Entity List based on a determination that they developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments that used this tool to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers,\" the Commerce Department said in an announcement last month.
EASILY IDENTIFIABLE
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NSO software is capable of not only capturing encrypted messages, photos and other sensitive information from infected phones, but also turning them into recording devices<\/a> to monitor surroundings, based on product manuals reviewed by Reuters.
Apple's alert to affected users did not name the creator of the spyware used in this hack.
The victims notified by Apple included American citizens and were easily identifiable as U.S. government employees because they associated email addresses ending in state.gov with their Apple IDs, two of the people said.
They and other targets notified by Apple in multiple countries were infected through the same graphics processing vulnerability that Apple did not learn about and fix until September, the sources said.
Since at least February, this software flaw allowed some NSO customers to take control of iPhones<\/a> simply by sending invisible yet tainted iMessage requests to the device, researchers who investigated the espionage campaign said.
The victims would not see or need to interact with a prompt for the hack to be successful. Versions of NSO surveillance software, commonly known as Pegasus<\/a>, could then be installed.
Apple's announcement that it would notify victims came on the same day it sued NSO Group last week, accusing it of helping numerous customers break into Apple's mobile software, iOS.
In a public response, NSO has said its technology helps stop terrorism and that they've installed controls to curb spying against innocent targets.
For example, NSO says its intrusion system cannot work on phones with U.S. numbers beginning with the country code +1.
But in the Uganda case, the targeted State Department employees were using iPhones registered with foreign telephone numbers, said two of the sources, without the U.S. country code.
Uganda has been roiled this year by an election with reported irregularities, protests and a government crackdown. U.S. officials have tried to meet with opposition leaders, drawing ire from the Ugandan government. Reuters has no evidence the hacks were related to current events in Uganda.
A senior Biden administration official, speaking on condition he not be identified, said the threat to U.S. personnel abroad was one of the reasons the administration was cracking down on companies such as NSO and pursuing new global discussion about spying limits.
The official added that the government has seen \"systemic abuse\" in multiple countries involving NSO's Pegasus spyware<\/a>.
Sen. Ron Wyden, who is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: \"Companies that enable their customers to hack U.S. government employees are a threat to America's national security and should be treated as such.\"
Historically, some of NSO Group's best-known past clients included Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Mexico.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense must approve export licenses for NSO, which has close ties to Israel's defense and intelligence communities, to sell its technology internationally.
In a statement, the Israeli embassy in Washington said that targeting American officials would be a serious breach of its rules.
\"Cyber products like the one mentioned are supervised and licensed to be exported to governments only for purposes related to counter-terrorism and severe crimes,\" an embassy spokesperson said. \"The licensing provisions are very clear and if these claims are true, it is a severe violation of these provisions.\"
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路透华盛顿/旧金山:苹果(aapl . o:行情)iphone至少九个美国国务院员工被一个未知的入侵攻击者使用复杂间谍软件由这家以色列NSO集团根据四个知情人士。
黑客,这发生在过去的几个月里,打击美国官员位于乌干达或者关注事项东非国家,两位消息人士说。
入侵,首次报道了在这里,代表美国官员的广泛的已知的黑客通过NSO技术。以前,一个数字列表与潜在目标包括一些美国官员在报道NSO浮出水面,但尚不清楚是否入侵总是尝试成功了。
路透社无法决定谁推出了最新的网络攻击。
NSO集团周四在一份声明中说,它没有任何迹象但取消访问他们的工具用于相关的客户,根据路透调查调查。
“如果我们的调查显示这些行为确实发生在太阳的工具,这样的客户将永久终止和法律行动将“一个NSO发言人说,他补充说,太阳也会“与任何相关政府机构合作,我们将会呈现完整的信息。”
NSO一直表示,只有把自己的产品卖给政府执法和情报的客户,帮助他们监控安全威胁,并不是直接参与监视操作。
乌干达驻华盛顿大使馆的官员没有置评。一位发言人苹果拒绝置评。
美国国务院发言人拒绝评论入侵,而不是指向美国商务部最近决定将以色列公司在一个实体列表,更难与他们美国公司做生意。
NSO集团和另一个间谍软件公司是“添加到实体列表中基于决心他们开发和向外国政府提供间谍软件,恶意使用这个工具目标政府官员、记者、商人、活动家、学者和使馆人员,“上个月商务部在一份声明中说。
容易识别的
NSO软件不仅能够获取加密消息,从受感染的手机照片和其他敏感信息,但也把他们变成录音设备监控环境,根据路透产品手册了。
苹果的警报向受影响的用户没有名字的创造者在这个黑客使用的间谍软件。
受害者通知苹果包括美国公民和美国政府雇员,因为他们很容易地辨认出相关联的电子邮件地址以州政府与他们的苹果id,两人说的。
他们和其他目标通知由苹果公司在多个国家通过同样的图形处理被感染的漏洞,苹果才了解并修复9月,消息人士说。
至少从2月开始,这个软件缺陷允许一些NSO客户控制iphone只要看不见但污染iMessage请求发送到设备,研究人员调查了间谍活动。
受害者不会看到或需要与一个黑客成功提示。版本的NSO监视软件,俗称珀加索斯,可以安装。
苹果公司宣布将通知受害者的同一天它起诉NSO集团上周,指责它帮助众多客户进入苹果的手机软件,iOS。
公开回应,太阳已表示它的技术帮助制止恐怖主义和他们安装控制抑制间谍对无辜的目标。
例如,太阳说其入侵系统不能工作在手机与美国数字开头的国家代码+ 1。
但是在乌干达的情况下,国务院有针对性的员工使用iphone与外国电话号码注册,两位消息人士表示,没有美国的国家代码。
乌干达被搅乱了今年的大选报道违规行为,抗议和政府的镇压。美国官员试图会见反对派领导人,乌干达政府的愤怒。路透没有证据在乌干达老将也有相关的时事。
拜登政府的一位高级官员,他说条件不确定,说美国威胁人员在国外的原因之一是政府打击NSO,追求新的全球讨论等公司从事间谍活动的限制。
这位官员补充说,政府已经在多个国家滥用“系统性”涉及太阳亮度的飞马间谍软件。
参议员罗恩,他是参议院情报委员会表示:“攻击美国政府公司,使他们的客户员工对美国国家安全的威胁,应被当作罪犯对待。”
从历史上看,NSO集团最著名的过去的一些客户包括沙特阿拉伯、阿拉伯联合酋长国和墨西哥。
以色列国防部NSO,出口必须批准许可证已以色列国防和情报社区关系密切,在国际上出售其技术。
以色列驻华盛顿大使馆在一份声明中表示,针对美国官员将是一个严重违反它的规则。
提到的“网络产品监督和出口授权给政府只对有关反恐的目的和严重的罪行,”一个大使馆发言人表示。“许可规定很清楚,如果这些指控是真实的,它是一种严重违反本规定。”
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