Biden Administration Blacklists NSO Group over Pegasus Spyware

The United States on Wednesday added the Israeli spyware company NSO Group to its "entity list," a federal blacklist prohibiting the company from receiving some American technologies, after determining the company's phone-hacking tools had been used by foreign governments to "maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers." From a report: The move is a significant sanction against a company spotlighted in July by the global Pegasus Project consortium, including The Washington Post and 16 other news organizations worldwide. The consortium published dozens of articles detailing misuse of the Pegasus spyware by customers of NSO. The Commerce Department said in a statement that the action is part of the Biden administration's "efforts to put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy, including by working to stem the proliferation of digital tools used for repression." The U.S. has also added Israel's Candiru, Russian security firm Positive Technologies, and Singapore-based Computer Security Initiative Consultancy to the entity list.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.