NSO Group's Pegasus Spyware

NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware can covertly access any smartphone—reading messages, tracking location, and activating the camera and microphone—with zero user interaction, making it the most invasive spyware sold to governments. The 2021 Pegasus Project revealed its use to surveil journalists and activists in at least 45 countries, with 85% of targets in jurisdictions lacking judicial oversight. It is cheaper than #5’s Clearview AI (licenses at $1 million vs. Clearview’s $3 million annual contracts) but narrower in scope, targeting 50,000 individuals compared to Clearview’s 3 billion photos. NSO Group was blacklisted by the US Commerce Department.