When The New York Times reported in April {that a} contractor had bought and deployed a spying instrument made by NSO, the contentious Israeli hacking agency, to be used by the U.S. authorities, White House officers stated they have been unaware of the contract and put the F.B.I. answerable for determining who may need been utilizing the know-how.

After an investigation, the F.B.I. uncovered a minimum of a part of the reply: It was the F.B.I.

The deal for the surveillance instrument between the contractor, Riva Networks, and NSO was accomplished in November 2021. Only days earlier than, the Biden administration had put NSO on a Commerce Department blacklist, which successfully banned U.S. companies from doing enterprise with the corporate. For years, NSO’s spyware and adware had been abused by governments around the globe.

This specific instrument, often called Landmark, allowed authorities officers to trace folks in Mexico with out their data or consent.

The F.B.I. now says that it used the instrument unwittingly and that Riva Networks misled the bureau. Once the company found in late April that Riva had used the spying instrument on its behalf, Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, terminated the contract, in keeping with U.S. officers.

But many questions stay. Why did the F.B.I. rent this contractor — which the bureau had beforehand licensed to purchase a different NSO tool beneath a canopy title — for delicate information-gathering operations exterior the United States? And why was there apparently so little oversight?

It can also be unclear which, if any, authorities businesses apart from the F.B.I. may need labored with Riva Networks to deploy the spying instrument in Mexico. Two folks with direct data of the contract stated cellphone numbers in Mexico have been focused all through 2021, 2022 and into this 12 months — far longer than the F.B.I. says the instrument was used.

The episode additional illustrates how, even because the White House tries to crack down on overseas spyware and adware companies, NSO continued to seek out methods to generate income off its instruments.

Riva Networks and its chief govt, Robin Gamble, didn’t reply to a number of requests for touch upon the F.B.I.’s accusations. When a Times reporter went to an tackle the corporate lists in some public data, an individual who answered stated he had by no means heard of Mr. Gamble. He refused to offer his title earlier than closing the door.

The F.B.I., in keeping with a number of U.S. officers, had employed the New Jersey-based Riva Networks to assist observe suspected drug smugglers and fugitives in Mexico as a result of the corporate was in a position to exploit vulnerabilities within the nation’s cellphone networks to covertly observe cell phones.

A senior F.B.I. official stated that in early 2021, the bureau gave Riva Networks a number of cellphone numbers in Mexico to focus on as a part of its fugitive apprehension program. The official, who like others on this article spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate delicate particulars, stated that the bureau thought Riva Networks was utilizing an in-house geolocation instrument.

In the investigation that the F.B.I. started after The Times article, the bureau discovered that in some unspecified time in the future in 2021 Riva started utilizing Landmark, the NSO instrument, with out informing the bureau, the official stated. Riva renewed its contract with NSO in November 2021 with out telling the F.B.I., the official stated.

The bureau instructed its contractors, together with Riva, that they may not use NSO merchandise in 2021, the official stated, including that no knowledge from Landmark ever made it again to the F.B.I. — a minimum of based mostly on what Riva Networks instructed the company.

“As part of our mission, the F.B.I. is tasked with locating fugitives around the world who are charged in U.S. courts, including for violent crimes and drug trafficking,” the company stated in an announcement. “To accomplish this, the F.B.I. regularly contracts with companies who can provide technological assistance to locate these fugitives who are hiding abroad.”

The assertion added: “The F.B.I. has not employed foreign commercial spyware in these or any other operational endeavors. This geolocation tool did not provide the F.B.I. access to an actual device, phone or computer. We will continue to lawfully utilize authorized tools to protect Americans and bring criminals to justice.”

A senior White House official instructed The Times that as a result of Landmark is an NSO product, its use by the federal government is banned beneath a brand new govt order that restricts federal businesses from utilizing spying instruments made by some overseas hacking corporations. But U.S. officers say that authorities use of geolocation instruments typically doesn’t violate the chief order.

It is just not uncommon for the F.B.I., in addition to different regulation enforcement businesses, to make use of contractors that present applied sciences reminiscent of breaking into telephones after a terrorist assault. The intelligence group additionally depends on contractors for sure talents.

The Times has sued the F.B.I. beneath the Freedom of Information Act for paperwork associated to the bureau’s buy of NSO instruments and has additionally sought paperwork in regards to the bureau’s relationship with Riva Networks. In a courtroom submitting this week, authorities attorneys argued that the F.B.I. shouldn’t have to show over details about Riva Networks as a result of “the vendors at issue either already do, or may in the future, offer other products that are or can be used for investigative purposes.”

The Biden administration blacklisted NSO after years of scandal related to its major hacking instrument, Pegasus, which authoritarian governments and democracies alike have used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents.

The White House declined to touch upon whether or not it will push for penalties in opposition to Riva Networks.

Government databases present that Riva Networks has had quite a few profitable contracts with authorities businesses, together with the Defense Department, the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. As just lately as October, the corporate was awarded a contract for work with the Air Force Research Laboratory.

Marc DeNofio, a spokesman for the laboratory, stated the work had largely been accomplished, however “Riva is still active as there are still some support hours remaining on their effort.”

The F.B.I.’s relationship with the corporate additionally goes again a number of years. In reality, the bureau used Riva Networks to buy Pegasus, which penetrates telephones and extracts their contents with out customers’ data. The bureau paid greater than $5 million to check the spyware and adware from 2019 to 2021, and officers mentioned utilizing it as a part of their investigations earlier than in the end deciding in opposition to it.

The testing occurred at one in all Riva’s amenities in New Jersey, the place the Pegasus system stays. The F.B.I. official stated Pegasus was inactive as a result of the bureau didn’t renew a license for its software program.

When it bought Pegasus, the bureau used a canopy title for Riva Networks, Cleopatra Holdings, in keeping with two folks conversant in the contract. That title was additionally used within the November 2021 contract between Riva Networks and NSO for the acquisition of Landmark, in keeping with a replica reviewed by The Times.

Mr. Gamble, Riva’s chief govt, even signed the contract for Landmark beneath a pseudonym, William Malone, in keeping with these folks.

Unlike Pegasus, Landmark doesn’t penetrate and extract knowledge from cellphones. Instead, it tracks the situation of particular person folks based mostly on which cell tower their cellphone is speaking with.

Tracking a single particular person can lead to lots of or 1000’s of particular person Landmark queries, or makes an attempt to find out location at any given time.

In 2017, Saud al-Qahtani, a senior adviser to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, used Landmark to trace dissidents as a part of the dominion’s brutal marketing campaign to crack down on its perceived enemies. Mr. Qahtani has additionally been recognized as the one who orchestrated the killing of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

In March, the White House issued an executive order limiting federal businesses from utilizing spyware and adware instruments which were abused by governments. Days later, a gaggle of nations on the Summit for Democracy signed a joint statement of their dedication to reining within the abuses of hacking instruments.

Then, weeks in the past, the Biden administration blacklisted two corporations which might be on the heart of a political scandal in Athens over the usage of spyware and adware in opposition to politicians and journalists. Both corporations are managed by an Israeli former common who has promoted them as opponents to NSO.

Despite rising consideration by governments within the West to the hazards of economic spyware and adware, the instruments proceed to proliferate with new companies — which make use of Israeli cyberintelligence veterans, a few of whom labored for NSO — stepping in to fill the void from NSO’s blacklisting .

An investigation by Microsoft and Citizen Lab, a analysis group based mostly on the University of Toronto, just lately linked malware produced by QuaDream, an Israeli agency, to hackings in quite a few international locations of journalists, political opposition figures and a minimum of one employee for a nongovernmental group.

QuaDream, like NSO and different business spyware and adware companies, “employs complicated and opaque corporate practices that may be designed to evade public scrutiny and accountability,” the investigation discovered.