After the failed attempt by Integrity Partners, it is one of the American defense jewels, L3Harris Technologies, which would like to buy the Pegasus technology.
In November 2021, Joe Biden’s administration blacklisted the Israeli company NSO Group, assessed as a severe national security risk. Today, we learn that the American company L3Harris would conduct advanced discussions with NSO Group with a view to acquiring its spy solution.
As a reminder, NSO Group is the publisher of the very powerful Pegasus smartphone listening tool, sold to various states in order to monitor leaders, opponents, journalists, activists and other senior officials. We talked about it a lot in France during the summer of 2021, after several revelations concerning the presence of French personalities (including politicians) in the listings of tapped telephones, including that of Emmanuel Macron.
placed on theentity list, NSO Group can theoretically no longer market its products in the United States, nor use American components or technologies. Suffice to say that given the context, Washington is undoubtedly following with a very attentive eye the negotiations which take place between L3Harris and NSO Group, just as the administration had scrutinized closely the discussions opened at the beginning of the year with Integrity Partners, a fund held by former US military personnel.
L3Harris Technologies is a flagship of the aerospace and – especially – of defense, which produces tactical equipment for telecommunications and military operations in the field. It is the sixth largest company under contract with the United States Department of Defense.