NEW YORK - The Biden administration took a public stand last year against the abuse of spyware to target human rights activists, dissidents and journalists: It blacklisted the most notorious maker of the hacking tools,But the global industry for commercial spyware – which allows governments to invade mobile phones and vacuum up data – continues to boom. Even the United States government is using it.
Predator was found to have been used in a dozen more countries since 2021, illustrating the continued demand among governments and the lack of robust international efforts to limit the use of such tools. Commercial spyware has been used by intelligence services and police forces to hack phones used by drug networks and terrorist groups. But it has also been abused by numerous authoritarian regimes and democracies to spy on political opponents and journalists.
The Biden administration took action. A year ago, it placed NSO and another Israeli firm, Candiru, on a Commerce Department blacklist – banning US companies from doing business with the hacking firms.