WASHINGTON—Embattled Israeli technology firm NSO Group acknowledged that its clients had sometimes misused the company’s high-powered hacking tools but defended the need to give law-enforcement and intelligence agencies the ability to digitally break into and monitor smartphones.
In his first media interview since taking over as chief executive in 2022, Yaron Shohat said NSO Group has lost customers since the Biden administration levied stiff measures against the company in late 2021, but has stabilized itself financially and recently attracted new deals. Mr. Shohat didn’t specify how many customers NSO Group currently has but said it was around a few dozen.
