From inside the UAE .. An Israeli company employee uses her technology to spy on his girlfriend

Motherboard reported that an employee of the Israeli company NSO, which specializes in developing spyware for governments and regulations, abused the company's products for personal purposes.

The incident dates back several years when an employee of the company traveled at the time to the United Arab Emirates to work, and a former employee said that the Israeli company had sent the employee "to do technical support on the site".

But while he was on the site, the employee entered the customer’s office and logged into the Pegasus system outside normal business hours, and entered the target phone number - which was a woman the employee personally knew - to start the storming process of her phone, according to one of the sources familiar with the accident.

Pegasus software can track the target's location, read texts, emails, messages of social platforms, pull its photos and videos, and operate the device's camera and microphone.

The employee was exposed when the UAE customer arrived an alert that the Pegasus program had been used outside of official working hours, to open an investigation and reach an employee of the Israeli "NSO" company, and two sources said that the authorities in the UAE detained the employee and informed the Israeli company of the incident.

These two sources added that the company fired the employee, and held a meeting to inform the employees of the incident to ensure that it does not happen again.

The sources did not specify the Emirati entity whose employee abused its program. In the UAE, there are three intelligence agencies: Emirates State Security, the Emirates Intelligence Agency, and Military Intelligence Services.

The incident - which was not previously reported - is a serious misuse of "NSO" products, which are usually used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. It also highlights that powerful surveillance technology can eventually be misused by humans who have access to it.

The UAE embassy in Washington did not respond to the request for comment, and NSO declined to speak to Motherboard about the accident.

Khashoggi blood .. Pegasus and the Black Legacy
Although it has been well known in the security world for years, the spotlight has been placed on the Israeli company NSO after selling its piracy technology to Saudi Arabia, which used the tool to break into the phones of political opponents, including This is the communications of the writer in the Washington Post, Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA believes that Saudi agents killed him in Istanbul, Turkey in 2018 at the request of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman.

NSO says its tool should be used exclusively to combat terrorism or serious crime, but researchers, journalists and technology companies have found multiple instances of company clients who use the tool to spy on political opponents.

David Kay, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, noted the existence of a "historical legacy of harm" caused by the Pegasus Program.

Kay called for a global halt to the export of piracy technology, and said the accident raises a number of questions about NSO, so how can an employee do that in the first place? Was there any other misuse of the platform?

Facebook filed a lawsuit against the Israeli technology company for its exploitation of a security vulnerability in the WhatsApp application, so that its customers can penetrate the phones remotely by requesting only their number. 

Reuters reported that the FBI has been examining the use of "NSO" malicious programs to target US residents and companies since at least 2017.