Shalev Hulio, CEO of NSO, is going aggressive on the Pegasus Project claims that his spyware is being used to target politicians, journalists and human rights activists.Shalev Hulio, 39, is the CEO and cofounder of NSO Group, one of Israel's most successful cybersurveillance companies valued at over $1 billion, and the man ultimately responsible for smartphone hacks of high-profile journalists and world leaders, according to allegations made this week.
NSO itself claims that it works with governments to help catch the most serious and dangerous criminals—terrorists, gangsters and pedophiles—with spyware tools that can silently capture all the data from even the latest generation of iPhones. And business is good with NSO boasting of Ebitda earnings of $120 million on $250 million of sales for 2020.
As for the average person, they’ve no need to fear NSO Group, he insists, as his company is only going to flex its technical muscle and break into the Apple and Google phones of serious criminals. “The people that are not criminals, not the Bin Ladens of the world—there’s nothing to be afraid of. They can absolutely trust on the security and privacy of their Google and Apple devices.”
With the door open for plausible deniability, Hulio reiterates the list has nothing to do with NSO, saying there is no one server containing a list of all its clients’ possible targets and that the 50,000 number is “insane.” The average number of targets per NSO customer is at around 100 and the company only sells to between 40 and 45 countries, he adds.