July 18 (UPI) — The Commerce Department announced on Tuesday that it has imposed sanctions on two international technology firms responsible for creating spyware capable of conducting surveillance on Meta users, Android devices, and iOS software.
Intellexa and Cytrox, European companies, have developed software that exploits vulnerabilities in communication software, enabling them to monitor activists, politicians, and journalists worldwide by using hundreds of fake Meta accounts.
The companies were collectively identified and have subsidiaries in Greece, Ireland, Hungary, and North Macedonia.
“This measure reaffirms the global protection of human rights as a fundamental U.S. foreign policy interest,” stated Don Graves, Deputy Secretary of Commerce. “The Entity List serves as a powerful tool to thwart malicious actors from utilizing American technology to achieve their nefarious objectives.”
According to the tech security group Citizen Lab, Cytrox’s Predator spyware has been employed by authoritarian regimes to spy on activists, politicians, and journalists via their cell phones. Meta informed thousands of its users in 2021 that they were being targeted with Predator.
One of Intellexa’s surveillance products, called Nebula, gathers social media data and is marketed as a tool for law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
“We remain committed to curbing the proliferation of digital tools used for repression,” said Alan Estevez, Under Secretary of the Bureau of Industry and Security. “With regards to the impact of surveillance tools and other technologies on international human rights, I am pleased to announce these additions to our Entity List.”
In the past, Citizen Lab, Meta, and Google have raised concerns about both companies, as they have allowed various groups to successfully hack into iOS and Android devices.
“Without appropriate safeguards, these tools can be misused to conduct invasive and harmful surveillance on a wide range of targets, including activists, dissidents, journalists, and political opponents,” stated a senior administration official.
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