NSO Group

The BDS movement's own divestment page, verified on 4 August 2026; it carries no publication date. It defines divestment as 'institutional pressure against complicit corporations that are knowingly and persistently implicated in Israel's crimes and grave human rights violations, particularly genocide, apartheid, and occupation', states that 'our top priority Israeli targets for exclusion from contracts and, where applicable, divestment are publicly traded and/or compete for tenders internationally', and lists under that heading 'Military-security sector: Elbit Systems, IAI, NSO Group'. This is the source for describing NSO as a named divestment and procurement-exclusion target. Note the precise scope: it is a target for institutional exclusion and divestment, not for consumer boycott, and the two are not interchangeable.

Verified against the live Code of Federal Regulations on 4 August 2026. NSO Group is listed at '22 Galgalei Haplada, Herzliya, Tel Aviv-Yafo' with a licence review policy of 'presumption of denial'. The current version of the supplement took effect on 16 July 2026 and carries no end date, so the designation added by final rule on 4 November 2021 remains in force.

The most detailed public account of Pegasus to date, built from NSO's own internal training materials, presentations and technical documentation disclosed during the WhatsApp v. NSO Group litigation. Finds that Pegasus is an end-to-end system sold exclusively to governments and that 'the system cannot operate without NSO Group's ongoing involvement', with NSO building exploits, operating anonymised delivery infrastructure and running a 24/7 network operations centre. Records that Pegasus has previously been documented against family members of opposition figures and journalists, 'including some who were children when they were targeted'.

Amnesty states that infection of Kouloglou's device 'with an intrusive form of spyware that only governments can procure, while he was actively involved in the parliamentary inquiry committee that was investigating spyware abuse by European countries, raises serious concerns about the integrity of independent oversight at the highest levels in Europe', and that 'if an elected member of parliament is not safe from unlawful surveillance, then no one is'. Calls for an impartial investigation and for implementation of the PEGA recommendations.

Forensic analysis finding that Stelios Kouloglou, a Greek investigative journalist and former MEP, was infected with Pegasus on or around 21 October 2022 and again on 6 and 7 March 2023, while serving as a substitute member of the European Parliament's PEGA committee of inquiry into Pegasus abuses. Citizen Lab states it is 'not attributing these infections to a particular government at this time' and 'found no indications that the Greek Government is responsible', but identifies overlap with a Pegasus campaign against Russian and Belarusian-speaking exiles in Europe.

Meta announced that WhatsApp had asked the Northern District of California to hold NSO in contempt for violating the permanent injunction barring it from targeting WhatsApp and its users, alleging spear-phishing attempts designed to 'trick people into clicking on malicious links to drive them to external websites outside of WhatsApp', and the creation of test accounts and groups. Meta published three linked malicious domains. This is a filed allegation, not a finding: no ruling had been published as of 4 August 2026.

The Committee to Protect Journalists and ten partner organisations, with Access Now leading, filed an amicus brief in NSO's appeal against the permanent injunction, arguing that encryption protections are essential to preventing surveillance of journalists and human rights defenders and that 'without the permanent injunction, NSO will continue enabling human rights violations'. The Knight First Amendment Institute filed separately the same day.

Rep. Summer Lee (PA-12), ranking member of the House subcommittee on federal law enforcement, wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on 6 May 2026 demanding a briefing by 20 May 2026 on the department's deliberations over NSO's Entity List status, the American acquisition of the company, potential federal law-enforcement use of Pegasus, and communications with outside individuals including David Friedman. The letter followed NSO court filings arguing it is 'foreseeable' that a US agency will use Pegasus. CyberScoop reports that the Trump administration had rebuffed efforts to remove NSO from the list.

NSO's 2025 transparency report, published on 8 January 2026, omitted statistics on rejected, investigated, suspended or terminated customers that earlier editions carried, and the total customer count. The 2024 report had disclosed three investigations and $20m of rejected business; the 2023 report disclosed six government customers suspended or terminated. Natalia Krapiva of Access Now said 'NSO is clearly on a campaign to get removed from the U.S. Entity List'. The article confirms David Friedman's appointment as executive chairman, CEO Yaron Shohat's departure and founder Omri Lavie's exit, and names no successor chief executive.

Judge Phyllis Hamilton granted a permanent injunction requiring NSO to cease reverse-engineering WhatsApp, stop creating WhatsApp accounts and delete WhatsApp source code, while cutting the jury's $167.25m punitive award to just over $4m, nine times the $444,000 compensatory award. The injunction is limited to WhatsApp and does not extend to other Meta products; an NSO spokesperson noted it 'doesn't apply to NSO Group customers'. This supersedes the $167m figure widely reported after the May 2025 jury verdict.

NSO confirmed that 'an American investment group has invested tens of millions of dollars in the company and has acquired controlling ownership', led by film producer Robert Simonds. The company stated that the investment 'does not mean that the company is moving out of Israeli regulatory or operational control', that 'the company's headquarters and core operations remain in Israel', and that it 'continues to be fully supervised and regulated by the relevant Israeli authorities, including the Ministry of Defense and the Israeli regulatory framework'.

Names NSO Group in the body of the report at paragraph 37: 'Israeli tech firms often grow out of military infrastructure and strategy, as the NSO Group, founded by ex-Unit 8200 members, did. Its Pegasus spyware, designed for covert smartphone surveillance, has been used against Palestinian activists and licensed globally to target leaders, journalists and human rights defenders. Exported under the Defense Export Control Law, NSO Group surveillance technology enables "spyware diplomacy" while reinforcing State impunity.' The passage cites Amnesty International's documentation of Pegasus used against Palestinian human rights defenders and the European Parliament PEGA committee report. This is the single strongest citation available for this company.

Report of the Committee of Inquiry to investigate the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware, cited by the UN Special Rapporteur in A/HRC/59/23. Concluded that in Hungary the use of Pegasus 'appears to be a part of a calculated and strategic campaign to destroy media freedom and freedom of expression by the government', and examined use in Poland, Spain and other member states. Its recommendations remain unimplemented, as Amnesty noted in July 2026.

Documents Pegasus infections on the devices of six Palestinian human rights defenders, three of whom consented to be named: Ghassan Halaika of Al-Haq, Ubai Al-Aboudi of the Bisan Center for Research and Development, and Salah Hammouri of Addameer. Argues that the timing of Israel's October 2021 designation of Palestinian civil society organisations as terrorist organisations 'suggests that it is also an effort to legitimate the surveillance and infiltration of the devices of Palestinian human rights defenders using Pegasus spyware'.

Independent forensic confirmation of the same six infections. Citizen Lab states that it and Amnesty International's Security Lab 'independently confirmed these findings', and notes that the same technical methodology was accepted by the High Court of England and Wales in separate proceedings.

Investigation with 17 media organisations into a leaked list of more than 50,000 phone numbers selected as potential targets by NSO government clients, including heads of state, journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders, and numbers associated with the family of Jamal Khashoggi. NSO disputes the interpretation of the list and denies any connection to Khashoggi's murder.

Dedicated research report on NSO by the Israeli research centre Who Profits. Documents how 'military knowledge, developed in a context of prolonged occupation to enhance the brutal matrix of control over an occupied population, is commercialized', records founder and adviser backgrounds in Israeli military intelligence, and lists Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the UAE as states where NSO technology was allegedly used against activists, journalists and lawyers. Note: this is a Who Profits publication; NSO does not have an entry in the Who Profits company database.