A lawsuit from Apple piles pain on NSO Group

ISRAEL’S CYBER-SECURITYNSO industry is booming. In July the National Cyber Directorate, a government agency, said that startups in the field had raised $3.4bn across 50 separate deals. Seven had become “unicorns”, or privately held firms worth at least $1bn.But not everyone is enjoying the good times. On November 23rd Apple, a big smartphone-maker, announced that it would be suing Group, an Israeli firm founded in 2010 and a one-time member of the unicorn club, accusing it of “weaponising powerful state-sponsored spyware” against its customers. It was the latest blow in an awful year for a firm which, despite the clandestine nature of its business, has become one of Israel’s best-known—and most controversial—companies.