Last week, the US Commerce Department sanctioned blacklisted four companies for “malicious cyber activities”, including the NSO Group, which makes and deploys the Pegasus spyware on behalf of its clients.
The impact of the decision appeared to deal a significant blow to the Israeli company — Wall Street cast fresh doubts on its ability to pay back a debt of $300 million, its CEO-designate resigned, and Israel’s government appeared to distance itself from the controversies of what it said was a private company.
The move was a long time coming, especially since the NSO Group is now believed to have enabled significant human rights abuses and has served clients that have targeted American allies, including elected state functionaries of NATO members such as France.
The blacklist included another Israeli company, Candiru, and Russian firm Positive Technologies and Singapore-based Computer Security Initiative Consultancy. The Israeli companies were sanctioned because they “supplied spyware to foreign governments that used these tools to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers”.
The Russia- and Singapore-based companies were acted upon “based on a determination that they traffic in cyber tools used to gain unauthorized access to information systems, threatening the privacy and security of individuals and organisations worldwide”.
The most significant implication of the commerce department decision is that it draws a clear red line: Practices that threaten “threaten the rules-based international order” are in the crosshairs of the most powerful military and economic power of the world.
It is notable that the commerce department calls out how these companies have enabled “transnational repression”.
The message is clear: “Today’s action is a part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy, including ..
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