Wow, the Mediterranean climate is certainly amazing! Five companies in southern Europe have been called out by Google and accused of producing spyware software that infects and affects mobile phones around the world.
The search engine giant says the five companies in Italy, Greece and Spain are “enabling the use of dangerous hacking tools” and calls on the US and its allies to do more to combat the spyware industry. (via Reuters).
Although many of these companies claim that their products are used exclusively by governments around the world for national security, their spyware tools are often used to spy on civil society. used. Not too long ago, Israeli company NSO’s Pegasus spyware made headlines for being used to spy on many people around the world.
In addition to NSO, there are many other companies that are “supporting the spread of spying technology for malicious purposes,” the report said. A study by Google’s TAG Threat Hunting Team states:
Demand from government customers remains strong, and our findings highlight how commercial spyware vendors are proliferating hacking and spyware capabilities that make the Internet less secure for everyone. Today, the private sector is responsible for most of the most advanced detection tools we use.
Companies accused of circumventing iOS and Android security measures and infiltrating mobile phones include Italy’s Cy4Gate, RCS Labs, Negg Group, Greece’s Intellexa, and Spain’s Variston.
Negg Group’s website says the company is focused on cybersecurity, but Google found that its software was used to spy on people in Italy, Malaysia, and Kazakhstan. announced.
Variston has created software that infects users’ phones through the browsers Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or iOS apps.
Five companies either did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters or could not be reached.