Tech giant Apple has filed a lawsuit against NSO Group and its parent company over the alleged surveillance and targeting of its users.

In the complaint, the company claimed it had “new information” on how the Israeli company infected user devices with its Pegasus spyware.

Apple is also seeking a permanent injunction to ban the group from using any Apple software, services, or devices.

Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, said that state-sponsored actors which spend millions on sophisticated surveillance tech must be held accountable.

“Apple devices are the most secure consumer hardware on the market — but private companies developing state-sponsored spyware have become even more dangerous,” said Federighi. “While these cybersecurity threats only impact a very small number of our customers, we take any attack on our users very seriously, and we’re constantly working to strengthen the security and privacy protections in iOS to keep all our users safe.”

Apple said that NSO attacks were only aimed at a very small number of users but that they impact people across multiple platforms, including iOS and Android.

“The steps we’re taking today will send a clear message: in a free society, it is unacceptable to weaponise powerful state-sponsored spyware against those who seek to make the world a better place,” said Ivan Krstić, head of Apple Security Engineering and Architecture. “Our threat intelligence and engineering teams work around the clock to analyse new threats, rapidly patch vulnerabilities, and develop industry-leading new protections in our software and silicon.

“Apple runs one of the most sophisticated security engineering operations in the world, and we will continue to work tirelessly to protect our users from abusive state-sponsored actors like NSO Group.”

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