The Israeli cybersecurity company NSO Group has been accused of ruining the life of Hanan Elatr, the wife of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in a new lawsuit filed on Thursday. The lawsuit alleges that NSO infected Elatr’s cellphone with their spyware, Pegasus, to monitor Khashoggi. As a result, Elatr has been living in constant fear and isolation, unable to safely visit her family in Egypt or live a normal life. The lawsuit requests unspecified damages.
The lawsuit draws heavily on findings from a 2021 investigation by an international consortium of news outlets, including The Washington Post, and led by Paris-based Forbidden Stories. The investigation revealed how Pegasus was used to target journalists, politicians, and dissidents. It also cites the forensic work conducted by Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto and Amnesty International’s Security Lab.
Attempts to contact NSO Group for comment have been unsuccessful. The company has claimed that its spyware is meant to track criminals and terrorists but reports have shown that it is often used against opposition political parties, human rights activists, and even family members.
Former NSO Group CEO Shalev Hulio has denied previous claims that the company’s spyware was used to monitor Elatr’s phone or played a role in Khashoggi’s murder. However, the lawsuit argues that NSO Group violated federal and Virginia anti-hacking laws by spying on Elatr without her consent.
Elatr, who worked as a flight attendant for Emirates Airlines, became close with Khashoggi while he was a renowned critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. After Khashoggi’s murder in 2018, Elatr was put under house arrest in Dubai, lost her job, and went into hiding in the United States. She currently works at a local hotel while hiding her identity.
This lawsuit is one of several that NSO Group faces for the use of its spyware against journalists, activists, and lawyers in various countries. Companies like Facebook and Apple have also taken legal action against NSO Group.
The suit alleges that NSO was negligent in selling its spyware to clients known to violate human rights. In 2022, the Biden administration added NSO Group to the Commerce Department’s Entity List, prohibiting U.S. companies from exporting any hardware or software to the company. Despite this, NSO Group reportedly paid over $1 million to PR firms and law firms in the United States.
While the CIA determined that Mohammed ordered Khashoggi’s murder, the Biden administration ruled that Mohammed was immune from a lawsuit filed by another woman close to Khashoggi. Elatr’s case is different as she is suing the company that made and sold the spyware rather than the country that used it.
In December 2021, Elatr learned definitively that her cellphone had been hacked by NSO. Cybersecurity expert Bill Marczak informed her that traces of NSO spyware had been found on her device, and he even observed someone typing in a known NSO website to infect her devices. The time stamps matched the day and hour when UAE authorities detained Elatr at the Dubai airport and seized her devices.
Elatr has been burdened with guilt since learning this news. She remains isolated and has not been able to build a normal life for herself in the United States. She hopes to achieve justice for her husband and herself through this lawsuit, as she believes her life has been destroyed by NSO’s actions.
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