Spyware firm NSO asks Israeli government to help remove US sanctions

Israeli spyware firm NSO Group has asked the Israeli cabinet to help lift US sanctions placed on it last week, Axios revealed on Thursday evening.
 

The group's CEO, Shalev Hulio, sent a "secret" letter with his request to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, which Axios says it obtained, stating that the sanctions could cause many Israeli job losses within the company.
 

"[Hulio] wrote that... the US decision... was a result of an orchestrated campaign by anti-Israeli organizations who want to harm Israeli companies... and stressed that formal backing by the Israeli government 'is a basic condition' for... efforts to lift the US sanctions," Axios reported.

NSO was blacklisted earlier this month "for engaging in activity contrary to the [country's] national security", based on evidence that their Pegasus spyware was developed and supplied "to foreign governments that used these tools to maliciously target" officials, journalists and activists, the US State Department of Commerce said in a statement.