Israeli cyber surveillance companies NSO Group and Candiru have both been added to the US Commerce Department’s “Entity List,” it was announced Wednesday.
The firms were blacklisted due to “activities contrary to national security and the foreign policy interests of the United States,” according to a statement by the Commerce Department.
The State Department subsequently clarified that the Biden administration would not, however, be “taking action against countries or governments where these entities are located.”
This past summer the NSO Group got into hot water over its Pegasus software, which made it possible to spy on the phones of journalists, politicians, activists and business leaders in various countries who downloaded the technology on to their mobile phones. Candiru allegedly developed similar software.
According to the Commerce Department statement, the move was “based on evidence that these entities have developed and supplied spyware to foreign governments, which have used these tools to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics and embassy workers.
“These tools have also enabled foreign governments to carry out transnational repression, which involves authoritarian governments targeting dissidents, journalists and activists outside their sovereign borders, to silence dissidents.
“Such practices threaten the rules-based international order,” the statement said.
