NSO Group
NSO GroupREUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

Cyber company NSO has filed a defamation lawsuit against the Calcalist newspaper, following an expose it printed, alleging that Israel Police used the Pegasus surveillance software, developed by NSO, against regular Israeli citizens.

"This was not a journalistic investigation but a one-sided, biased, and false publication, which has received public attention in circumstances that raise a real concern that its purpose is to serve private interests," the company said. "The article Calcalist published was neither professional, responsible, nor impartial."

Shalev Hulio, NSO's CEO, spoke with Radio 103FM on Sunday.

"We are only concerned with one specific article," Hulio clarified. "The Calcalist alleged that we can aid investigators by using logs that preserve every operation undertaken by a person being monitored, and also that these logs can be deleted and whitewashed. It's simply not true.

"They published the article without approaching us for comment," he added. "We sent them a letter, informing them of their errors, but they made no response. No comment, no apology, nothing. So we realized that the only way to get them to pay attention is to sue them.

"False accusations have been made against us on many occasions," Hulio said, "but this is the first time we've decided to pick up the gauntlet and go to court. And we have chosen to go after the newspaper itself and its editors, not the reporters," he noted.