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Tuesday, A meeting of the Security Council of the United Nations was held Discussing the dangers of commercial spyware, marking the first time this type of software — also known as government or mercenary spyware – It was discussed in the Security Council.
The purpose of the meeting According to the US mission to the UNwas to “address the consequences of the proliferation and abuse of commercial spyware for the maintenance of international peace and security.” The United States and 15 other countries called the meeting.
The meeting was largely informal and did not conclude with any concrete proposals, but most of the countries involved, including France, South Korea and the UK, said governments should take action to control the spread and misuse of commercial spyware. On the other hand, Russia and China dismissed the concerns.
According to John Scott-Railton, senior fellow at the human rights organization Citizen Lab, which has been investigating spyware abuses since 2012, “secretive global developers, brokers, middlemen and boutique firms” “threaten international peace and security as well as human rights”. .
Scott-Railton called Europe the “epicenter of spyware abuses” and fertile ground for spyware companies. Citing a recent TechCrunch study that shows Barcelona has become a hub for spyware companies in the last few years.
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Representatives from Poland and Greece were made by countries with their own software-related spyware scandals. NSO Group and Intellexa intervened respectively.
Polish representative pointed to local legislative efforts “greater oversight, including by the judiciary, of the relevant operational activities of the security and intelligence services” while recognizing that spyware can be used legally. “We are not saying that the use of spyware is never justified or even required,” said the Polish representative.
And the representative of Greece pointed to the country’s 2022 bill banning the sale of spyware.
Russia blamed the United States. With reference to the representative of Russia Historic revelations of NSA spying According to US whistleblower Edward Snowden, “it was the United States that created and continues to improve a real system for global surveillance and illegal interference in the privacy of its own citizens and citizens of other countries.”
China’s representative criticized the meeting itself, saying that “the so-called commercial espionage program and the maintenance of international peace and security are putting the cart before the horse compared to more harmful proliferation activities by governments.”
“After the Stuxnet incident, the proliferation of advanced national cyber weapons has created a series of major Internet risks that are far more harmful than commercial spyware,” the Chinese representative said, referring to the Stuxnet malware. As part of the US-Israeli operation aimed at sabotaging Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
During the Biden administration, the US government took a number of actions against commercial spy programs, including Israel sanctions spyware makers NSO Group and Candiruas well as located in Greece Intellexa and its founder Tal Dilian; and compelling travel bans against people involved in the spyware industry.
last year, TechCrunch was told by people who work or used to work in the spyware industry expressed concern that sanctions and other punitive measures will affect them personally.
