Israel distances from blacklisted firm

Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Saturday sought to distance the government from the NSO group, an Israeli company blacklisted by the U.S. earlier this week for allegedly providing phone hacking spyware to foreign governments for nefarious purposes.

“NSO is a private company, it is not a governmental project and therefore even if it is designated, it has nothing to do with the policies of the Israeli government,” Lapid said at a press conference, according to Reuters.

“I don’t think there is another country in the world which has such strict rules according to cyber warfare and that is imposing those rules more than Israel and we will continue to do so,” he added.