WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The U.S. has imposed restrictions and sanctions on the Zionist regime’s spyware company NSO. It was placed on the U.S. blacklist, resulting in a decline in its deals and income.
However, it wasn’t the politicians, opposition activists and journalists who were spied on who benefitted from these restrictions, but rather another cyber-attacker Tal Dilian, a former combat fighter in an elite Special Operations Unit of the Intelligence Corps in the regime’s army and held a senior position in the occupying regimes espionage division “Aman”.
One of the spyware companies that Dilian founded is Intelexa, which developed the Predator software. Dillian focused on selling this spyware program to countries where the regime’s war ministry does not issue permits to export cyber-attack software, such as Bangladesh, Sudan and Ukraine, according to a report in Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper published on Friday.
Unlike cyber-attack companies registered and operating in the occupied territories, which are subject to the supervision of the Security Export Supervision Division in the war ministry, Dilian believes he is not under the ministry’s supervision and can supply his goods to any country or entity.
About a year ago, the phone of Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis was behaving oddly, as his battery began to die quickly and phone calls were being disconnected. The journalist, who criticized the Greek prime minister’s economic policy, became suspicious that he was being watched. A month later, a Canadian cyber security research institute, Citizen Lab, discovered that the Predator program had hacked Koukakis’ phone.
It was also found, following the formation of a commission of inquiry into the matter by the European Parliament and after examining 200 of its members’ phones, that an unsuccessful attempt had been made to hack the phone of the head of the Greek opposition, Nikos Androulakis, which caused a scandal described as the “Greek Watergate”.
Citizen Lab published a report last December confirming that two Egyptian dissidents in exile, politician Ayman Nour and a popular program host who wishes to remain anonymous, had been hacked by the Predator spyware.
The newspaper added that investigations into the Greek scandal revealed the source of the Predator program as the Israeli-occupied territories. Several weeks ago, members of the investigation commission set up by the European Union secretly visited the occupied territories and met with officials in the ministry of judiciary affairs, as well as with Director General and founder of NSO Shalev Julio.