The man stole the code of a secret program from his former employer, the Israeli-based cybersecurity company NSO Group, which specializes in developing cyber-weapons and spyware for foreign governments — including the notorious "Pegasus," Haaretz reported. He was arrested soon after allegedly trying to sell the malicious code on the Darknet, an area of the Internet often used for illegal activities due to the anonymity of its users, to a foreign government for $50 million.
According to the newspaper, the man, who used to work in the company's quality assurance department, now faces charges for stealing the code from the NSO's servers. Haaretz went on to report, citing NSO, that the hard-drive containing the code had been recovered prior to the former employee being able to sell it to a third party.
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NSO Group is a secretive Israeli-based company founded by veterans of a branch of the country's military intelligence, Unit 8200. It develops and sells hacking tools for government agencies and intelligence services around the world. It was reportedly also behind the recent discovery of a vulnerability that allowed hacking data contained on iPhones.