"A New Age of Warfare: How Internet Mercenaries Do Battle for Authoritarian Governments", 21 March 2019

... NSO and a competitor, the Emirati firm DarkMatter, exemplify the proliferation of privatized spying. ... The firms have enabled governments not only to hack criminal elements like terrorist groups and drug cartels but also in some cases to act on darker impulses, targeting activists and journalists.

... The F.B.I. is investigating current and former American employees of DarkMatter for possible cybercrimes, according to four people familiar with the investigation. The inquiry intensified after a former N.S.A. hacker working for the company grew concerned about its activities and contacted the F.B.I., Reuters reported.

The Middle East is the epicenter of this new era of privatized spying. Besides DarkMatter and NSO, there is Black Cube, a private company run by former Mossad and Israeli military intelligence operatives... Psy-Group, an Israeli company specializing in social media manipulation, worked for Russian oligarchs and in 2016 pitched the Trump campaign on a plan to build an online army of bots and avatars to swing Republican delegate votes.

... NSO products — particularly Pegasus — helped break up terrorist cells and aided investigations into organized crime and child abduction, European intelligence and law enforcement officials said in interviews. ... NSO’s first client, the Mexican government, was also using the hacking tools for darker purposes — as part of a broader government and industry surveillance effort.

... “NSO technology has helped stop vicious crimes and deadly terrorist attacks around the world,” the company said in a statement. “We do not tolerate misuse of our products and we regularly vet and review our contracts to ensure they are not being used for anything other than the prevention or investigation of terrorism and crime.”

... A spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Defense, which needs to authorize any contract that NSO wins from a foreign government, declined to answer questions about the company.

... Francisco Partners, a private equity firm, purchased a 70 percent stake in NSO for $130 million in 2013. Last month, NSO’s co-founders raised enough money to buy back a majority stake in NSO at a valuation of just under $1 billion. The London private equity firm Novalpina Capital backed the deal — making its major investors, including the Oregon state employees’ pension fund and Alaska’s sovereign wealth fund, part owners of NSO, according to public records.

... DarkMatter is effectively an arm of the state that has worked directly with Emirati intelligence operatives on numerous missions such as hacking government ministries in Turkey, Qatar and Iran and spying on dissidents inside the Emirates.

DarkMatter has origins in another company, an American firm called CyberPoint... CyberPoint obtained a license from the American government to work for the Emiratis, a necessary step intended to regulate the export of military and intelligence services... But the Emiratis had outsize ambitions and repeatedly pushed CyberPoint employees to exceed the boundaries of the company’s American license...

[DarkMatter] did not respond to a request to comment, nor did a spokesman for the Emirati government.

... Besides its breaches of foreign government ministries, DarkMatter also broke into Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail accounts, according to former employees. DarkMatter operatives posed as family and friends of the people they targeted to lure them into opening emails that contained malware.

Former employees said that DarkMatter targeted Mr. Mansoor, hacking his child’s baby monitor to eavesdrop on his family. In another operation, the company’s operatives pursued Rori Donaghy, a British activist critical of the Emirati government and its human rights record, who had also been a target of NSO spyware. DarkMatter also targeted Citizen Lab, the Canadian research organization, a former employee said.

DarkMatter told the employees that spying on American citizens would be off limits, but it proved to be an empty pledge...