A former employee of NSO Group, an Israeli company that builds and distributes zero-day exploits to governments, is accused of stealing spyware from his employer and trying to sell it for $50 million on the black market.
The 38-year-old former NSO Group executive was fired from the company and apparently decided to consider his future. The Israeli Attorney General’s Office claims that it received information that he was trying to sell a vulnerability worth about $90 million and tried to sell it on the Dark Web for $50 million in cryptocurrencies.
“The defendant committed this crime out of greed, despite the fact that he knew that it could harm state security and lead to the collapse of a company that employed 500 employees,” the State Prosecutor said, according to Jerusalem media.
However, a buyer of hacking tools informed NSO of the transaction and the company immediately contacted the authorities. So when the police “visited” the former employee’s home, they discovered a bunch of evidence.
The product in question was a vulnerability that hacked Apple products and was codenamed Pegasus. The vulnerability was 0day until it was discovered by the Canadian non-profit Citizen Lab, and was patched by Apple.
There is a similar package for Android devices called Chrysaor.
The former employee is accused of theft and destruction of private property in a way that endangers state security interests. It could be an interesting trial, if the proceedings are ever made public.
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