Policymakers Ignore Spyware Middlemen Driving Global Proliferation
Commercial spyware proliferation has skyrocketed in recent years, fuelled by the expansion of a global market comprising more than 500 entities across 40+ countries.
This surge has been facilitated by intermediaries — brokers, resellers, and partners — who, driven by profit and word-of-mouth reputation, act as indispensable enablers in the global supply chain for offensive cyber capabilities (OCCs), including spyware, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Atlantic Council.
Intermediaries have facilitated transactions that otherwise could not have taken place due to regional export controls or trade bans.
For example, reseller InReach Technologies was “solely founded” by spyware vendor Quadream in 2017 to promote its product outside Israel and to bypass the EU’s export controls, the report notes.
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
Signalgate | State surveillance