When 11 US diplomats in Uganda turned up with NSO Pegasus Malware on their phones, the US government responded by listing NSO as a covered Entity and forbidding any US company from buying or selling with it without express permission of the USG- Dell can't sell them monitors or laptops without the State Department publishing written, specific permission. Several US congresspersons advocated for even harsher response (Global Magnitsky Sanctions, which would, AIUI, basically cut them off from the dollar and their employees from traveling to the US). The US reserves the right to do that later.
So the US has responded, quite forcefully, to people much lower on the food chain being hacked by Pegasus.
Sure, the US effectively blacklisted NSO, but they did nothing to Israel. Imagine if a Russian business was found to have hacked State Department employees phones. Would being a private company prevent Russia from being blamed, particularly if they had the kind of state connections NSO had?
> Dell can't sell them monitors or laptops without the State Department publishing written, specific permission.
I wonder how this is enforced in practice? I have to assume Israel has retailer shops where anybody can just buy whatever, most likely even Dell laptops and monitors.
So the US has responded, quite forcefully, to people much lower on the food chain being hacked by Pegasus.
See: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/12/the-s...