Israel has set up a senior inter-ministerial team to look into growing allegations that the Pegasus spyware sold by an Israeli cyber firm has been abused in India, France, Mexico, Morocco and Iraq, an Israeli source said on Wednesday.
However, the source deemed it “doubtful” that new curbs would be placed on the spyware’s exports. Stopping short of describing the team’s task as a formal investigation, the source said: “The objective is to find out what happened, to look into this issue and learn lessons.”
The inter-ministerial team is headed by Israel’s National Security Council, which answers to PM Naftali Bennett and has broader areas of expertise than the defence ministry, which oversees exports of NSO Group’s software.