Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni (right) and Uganda’s First Lady Janet Museveni (2nd from right) pose for photo with then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara Netanyahu at the State House in Entebbe, Uganda, on February 3, 2020. Photo Sumy Sadurni/AFP

Israeli spyware firm NSO Group’s software was reportedly used by an unknown assailant to hack the cell phones of at least nine United States State Department employees, in what — if confirmed — would be the first time the embattled company’s technology was used to target American officials.

The hack targeted State Department workers in Uganda or those specializing in the East African country, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.

All of the American staff targeted were using iPhones. Last week, Apple announced that it was suing the NSO Group for targeting the users of its devices, saying the firm at the center of the Pegasus surveillance scandal needs to be held accountable.

The suit from the Silicon Valley giant adds new trouble for NSO, which was engulfed in controversy over reports that tens of thousands of activists, journalists and politicians were listed as potential targets of its Pegasus spyware.

While the phone numbers of US officials were included on a long list of potential targets revealed in a series of media reports earlier this year, it was never confirmed whether those phones were actually hacked.

NSO Group says its hacking software cannot work on phones that begin with the US +1 country code. However, the allegedly hacked State Department employees were using local phones in Uganda, Reuters said.

Responding to the report, which did not identify who had ordered the alleged hacking, NSO Group said it did not have any indication that its software was used in such a hack, but canceled the relevant accounts and pledged to investigate the matter.

“If our investigation shall show these actions indeed happened with NSO’s tools, such customer will be terminated permanently and legal actions will take place,” said an NSO spokesperson, who added that NSO will also “cooperate with any relevant government authority and present the full information we will have,” the firm said in a statement.

Asked for comment, the State Department only pointed to the recent decision by the Commerce Department to blacklist the Israeli company, making it harder for US firms to do business with it.

“We have been acutely concerned that commercial spyware like NSO Group software poses a serious counterintelligence and security risk to US personnel,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing later on Friday.

Both the Ugandan Embassy and Apple declined Reuters’ request for comment.

Noting “systemic abuse” in multiple countries by the Israeli firm, a senior Biden administration official speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters that such hacking was the reason that the US decided to crack down on groups like NSO.

The Israeli embassy in Washington said in a statement that the targeting of US officials would be a serious breach of its rules. The Defense Ministry must authorize the sale of spyware firms’ products abroad.

“Cyber products like the one mentioned are supervised and licensed to be exported to governments only for purposes related to counter-terrorism and severe crimes,” a spokesperson for the Israeli embassy said. “The licensing provisions are very clear and if these claims are true, it is a severe violation of these provisions.”

Israel’s ties with Uganda expanded dramatically in recent years, particularly under former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who was considered close to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

Netanyahu visited Uganda in 2020 where Museveni mediated between Israel and Sudan.

The US has been critical of human rights abuses in Uganda.

NSO Group has faced a torrent of international criticism over allegations it helps governments spy on dissidents and rights activists. NSO insists its product is meant only to assist countries in fighting crime and terrorism.

Marketed to governments for use solely against terrorists and criminals, Pegasus gives operators the ability to effectively take full control of a target’s phone, download all data from the device, or activate its camera or microphone without the user knowing.

The software has allegedly been abused by NSO customers to spy on human rights activists, journalists and politicians from Saudi Arabia to Mexico, including such high-profile targets as the fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist murdered in his country’s consulate in Istanbul.

NSO Group was asked by The Associated Press prior to Friday’s news whether it could survive as long as it is on the Commerce Department’s entity list. While not directly responding, it said it was “working on all appropriate channels to reverse the Department of Commerce’s decision.” - THE TIMES OF ISRAEL AP contributed to this report

The oldest unequivocal evidence of upright walking in the human lineage are footprints discovered at Laetoli, Tanzania in 1978, by paleontologist Mary Leakey and her team. The bipedal trackways date to 3.7 million years ago. Another set of mysterious footprints was partially excavated at nearby Site A in 1976 but dismissed as possibly being made by a bear. A recent re-excavation of the Site A footprints at Laetoli and a detailed comparative analysis reveal that the footprints were made by an early human -- a bipedal hominin, according to a new study reported in Nature.

Some of the South Sudanese graduates who completed studies at the National University of Science and Technology and are stranded in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Photo: Ezra Tshisa Sibanda/VOA

MARYLAND — Fourteen South Sudanese nationals, who graduated Friday at the National University of Science and Technology in Zimbabwe’s second largest city, Bulawayo, say they are stranded following their government’s failure to provide them air tickets to return home. Their representative, Makuei Maker Chuny, said they have no food and accommodation due to lack of funds.

He told VOA Zimbabwe Service that they have tried in vain to get help from the Sudanese Embassy in Harare with indications that they won’t get help anytime soon.

“We have been here for six years and government was supposed to provide us two-way tickets, coming and going. Already we have only used one ticket, that is, coming from South Sudan to Zimbabwe … This is a very desperate situation. The school now is going to be closed, there would be no water supply on campus, no electricity. How can you survive? Moreover, we used to have a warden here but now there is no warden. We will be left in the building alone and it’s not good for our health.

“We are asking the government of South Sudan to provide us with air tickets as soon as possible. This should be done before the end of this week. We want to go home. If they don’t do that, we are going to occupy the embassy (South Sudan) as we have been doing because we are compelled by the situation. At the embassy it’s also not convenient for us. This should be a good ending. It should not be a bad ending. We have been struggling, we have been suffering here. They have not been consistent in sending money and sometimes we were evicted … We are urging our government to help us.”

Chuny said it was unimaginable that his nation is failing to pay air tickets for few students.

“We are very few. We are 14 only. How can the whole nation fail to transport for 14 people? We thought this was not going to take even a week. I have written to many offices for two months asking them to provide tickets to my student colleagues but nothing has been done.

Our government hasn’t told us when they are going to provide us with tickets. I have been trying to communicate but nothing has come out clearly. So, I’m using this happening (graduation ceremony) in the presence of South Sudanese students in Zimbabwe to urge the government of South Sudan to provide our (air) tickets as soon as possible.”
He said they are ready to help their nation with skills they have acquired in Zimbabwe.

“We don’t want to be still here next week when we are already done with school. We have a lot of things. We have a lot of things that we can provide the country. The country does not have water supplies and here I’m with the skills which I’m able to provide. I was working with Bulawayo City Council and the (water) stations where I was are already operational. So, it is wise for the government of South Sudan to give us air tickets so we can go home quickly and then we settle and work on how we can deliver these services based on the skills that we have acquired in Zimbabwe.”

Chuny said the South Sudanese president should intervene as education officials are not helping them.

“… We are asking our president Salva Kiir (Mayardit) who is the one who provided us with these scholarships and he still has the powers to take us back home. It’s not good for someone who has graduated to remain in the same place.”

HE claimed that the country’s representatives in Zimbabwe have not been able to pay the air tickets for the students, who are desperate to go home.

“We have spoken to him (ambassador) but he dosen’t have the powers. He has been trying to go around asking people to assist but no one has responded as of now. I have also sent a delegation of those that graduated last year who are in Juba to pursue this issue of tickets but they have been thrown out of some offices, which is not good.

“We are not begging, we are citizens of South Sudan, we were brought here legally with the approval of the parliament of South Sudan and that whenever we finish here we will have our return tickets. Why are there no return tickets when we are done with the graduation.

You have been here for six years.”

South Sudanese officials in Harare did not respond to calls and messages sent on their mobile phones about the students’ plight. - Ezra Sibanda, Voice of America