Israeli Security Ministry: to Reduce Tech Exports
Israeli media discuss the Israeli Security Ministry's decision to reduce the list of countries to which technology firms can export.
Israeli website i24NEWS reported that the Israeli Ministry of Security decided yesterday to reduce the list of countries that Israeli cyberware firms can sell to from 102 countries to only 37. "Israel's" new allies, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, barred from being sold to.
According to a report by Israeli business website Calcalist, the decision came amid a series of bad news for the industry, as "fallout from the NSO Group scandal continues to reverberate."
The Israeli report indicated that "the reduction of the approved list by around two-thirds is likely to be a serious blow to one of Israel’s most prestigious export industries.
According to the report, "Most of the countries approved for cyber sales are European nations, as well as the US, Canada, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia. All are reportedly democratic states – possibly a reaction to the perception that Israeli offensive cyber firms were disproportionately selling their technologies to authoritarian regimes that targeted human rights advocates and journalists."
Sanctions and lawsuits against NSO
The NSO Group and a lesser-known Israeli competitor, Candiru, were blacklisted by the Biden administration at the start of this month, preventing them from accessing US technology.
Apple sued spyware maker NSO on Tuesday for targeting the users of its devices, saying the Israeli firm, at the center of the Pegasus surveillance scandal, needs to be held to account.
The Israeli company was engulfed in controversy over reports that tens of thousands of activists, journalists, and politicians were listed as potential targets of its Pegasus spyware.
The Israeli NSO Group, which designed the Pegasus spy program, expressed its "dismay" at the US decision to put it on the US blacklist of banned companies.
What is Pegasus?
An Israeli hacking-for-hire organization has assisted government clients in spying on more than 100 people around the world, including politicians, dissidents, human rights activists, embassy personnel, and journalists, according to a Microsoft report.
The identified Israeli company, Candiru, is part of a growing sector of largely unregulated spyware companies that offer surveillance equipment to government intelligence services and law enforcement organizations, many of which have offensive human rights histories.
According to an investigation led by The Washington Post and 16 media partners that were published on July 18, Pegasus is military-grade spyware leased by NSO to governments who used it in attempted and successful hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, and business executives.
Smartphones infected with Israeli spyware would become pocket-spying devices, allowing the user to read the target's messages, look through their photos, track their location, and even turn on their camera without their knowledge.
The investigation discovered that 37 targeted smartphones were found on a list of more than 50,000 numbers concentrated in countries known to engage in citizen surveillance and also known to have been clients of NSO Group.