Google criticizes spyware companies and calls for more regulation

Google said today that many spyware companies were making dangerous hacking tools and asked the US and its allies to do more to control the spyware industry.

Spyware companies say their products are for governments to use for national security. But the technology has been used many times to hack the phones of civil society, political opponents and journalists in the last 10 years. The industry has been under more pressure since NSO’s Pegasus spyware was found on the phones of people around the world, including human rights activists.

Google researchers said in a report today that there were many smaller firms besides NSO that were spreading spy technology for bad purposes.

Google’s findings are important because the company can see a lot of the hacking activities around the world, because of its many online services.

“Government customers still want spyware and our findings show how much commercial spyware companies have grown their hacking and spyware skills that make the Internet less safe for everyone,” Google’s TAG team of researchers said in the report.

“The private sector is now making a lot of the most advanced tools we find.”

The US and some of its allies agreed last year to try to stop the spyware industry, after spyware targeted at least 50 US government workers in 10 countries.

The Google researchers listed some firms that make different services to hack phones, and have been changing to get past the latest security features by Apple and Google for their phone systems iOS and Android.

They are the Italian firms Cy4Gate and RCS Labs, Greek firm Intellexa, and the less-known Italian firm Negg Group and Spain’s Variston.

Negg Group’s website says the firm works on cybersecurity, but Google said its software was used to spy on people in Italy, Malaysia, and Kazakhstan.

Variston made software that got into user’s devices through the browsers Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or iOS apps, Google said, and said that another firm, Protected AE or Protect Electronic Systems, used a similar way to target devices.

The five firms did not answer requests for comment, or could not be reached.

Google’s report came a day after the US said it had a new policy to restrict visas for those who misused commercial spyware, and let it put restrictions on people who were involved in the abuse of commercial spyware, or helped or gained from it.

“Stopping spyware companies from working in the US helps to change the incentives that have let them grow,” Google said in a statement.