NSO Groups State Trojan Could Shutdown Completely

For the manufacturers of state Trojans, things are not going particularly well right now. After the Munich-based company FinFisher stumbled, the signs are now also pointing to decline at the Israeli NSO Group.

This company has attracted far more attention, especially on an international scale. It was only a few weeks ago that its espionage malware Pegasus hit the headlines in many countries when a list of numerous journalists and lawyers emerged who had been spied on with the software. Opposition members were also under surveillance by various governments about the malware.

It has now been announced that the NSO Group is examining internally how it should proceed with the department in which the Pegasus Trojan horse is being developed. Possible options here are the sale or the complete closure of this business area. The news channel Al Jazeera reported, citing informed circles.

Conversion into a military service

According to reports, there have already been talks with various investment firms. Among them are two US American funds that have the plan to take over the Pegasus department and close down with regard to their business activities. Then you would invest around 200 million dollars and convert the area, including the know-how and technologies, into a purely military IT security service provider.

Since there is still no official statement from the NSO Group on the subject, it is unclear why the department should no longer be continued in its current form. The negative attention of recent times is unlikely to play a role, after all, companies that operate in this area tend to be less concerned with their good reputation anyway. But here, too, it could simply be the case that the increasing hardening of mobile platforms and the attention that Google and Apple, for example, are devoting to the zero-day scene, make the development of state Trojans with their very limited target group barely economically viable.