The
team is headed by Israel's National Security Council, which
answers to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and has broader areas
of expertise than the Defence Ministry, which oversees exports
of NSO Group's Pegasus software, the source said.
"This event is beyond the Defence Ministry purview," the source
said, referring to potential diplomatic blowback after prominent
media reports this week of suspected abuses of Pegasus in
France, Mexico, India, Morocco and Iraq.
The source, who has first-hand knowledge of the team and
requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, deemed
it "doubtful" that new curbs would be placed on Pegasus exports.
Stopping short of describing the team's task as a formal
investigation, the source said: "The objective is to find out
what happened, to look into this issue and learn lessons."
NSO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Neither did Bennett's office. Addressing a cyber conference on
Wednesday, the prime minister did not comment on the NSO affair.
A global investigation published on Sunday by 17 media
organisations, led by the Paris-based non-profit journalism
group Forbidden Stories, said Pegasus had been used in attempted
and successful hacks of smartphones belonging to journalists,
government officials and human rights activists.
NSO has rejected the reporting by the media partners, saying it
was "full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories".
Pegasus is intended for use only by government intelligence and
law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism and crime, NSO said.
Such purposes are also what guide Israel's export policy,
Defence Minister Benny Gantz said in a speech on Tuesday. But,
in a reference to the allegations around Pegasus, he added: "We
are currently studying the information published on the matter."
At the conference, Bennett said Israel has memorandums of
understanding with dozens of countries about cyber security,
which he wants to upgrade into a "global cyber defence shield".
(Writing by Dan Williams, Editing by William Maclean)
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