Numerous major U.S. tech firms, including Microsoft and Google, have issued an amicus brief supporting NSO Group victims' filing of lawsuits against the Israeli spyware firm in U.S. courts after legal action by El Salvadoran journalist Carios Dada and other plaintiffs were dismissed by a California federal judge for being "entirely foreign" to the country, according to The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
"Even if NSO's spyware tools were not being used to target U.S. citizens and officials, the proliferation of these tools would still inflict substantial harm on important U.S. interests," said the brief, which noted the tech firms' spyware disruption initiatives as part of its efforts to strengthen U.S. cybersecurity.
Such a brief was filed by Google in a bid to counter the ripple effect of spyware tools on free speech, free press, and election integrity. "Our filing argues that victims of spyware-enabled attacks should be able to take legal action in the U.S. against spyware vendors under existing anti-hacking laws — even if they were hacked abroad. This is imperative to narrow the attack vectors exploited by spyware vendors," wrote Google Head of Security Policy Charley Synder and Director of Security Legal Harold Chun.
