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17 January 2020
Issue: 7870 / Categories: Features , Cyper espionage
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Flavia Kenyon discusses the dangers of cyber espionage & global insecurity
  • An unregulated market lacking legal scrutiny and transparency.
  • The impact of Pegasus: a powerful and pernicious spyware product.
  • Holding spyware companies accountable.

According to Privacy International more than five hundred private companies are currently selling spyware products to governments in a cyber security market expected to be worth $300bn by 2025, a market that is unregulated and lacks legal scrutiny and transparency.

Surveillance of individuals—often journalists, activists, opposition figures, critics, and others exercising their right to freedom of expression—has been shown to lead to arbitrary detention, oppression, sometimes to torture and possibly to extrajudicial killings.

The most powerful and pernicious spyware product on the market today is ‘Pegasus’,developed by Israel’s NSO Group. Earlier this year, UK private equity firm Novalpina Capital acquired majority ownership of the NSO group.

Pegasus

Pegasus penetrates security features in popular operating systems, such as WhatsApp, and silently installs the malware on a target’s phone without the user’s knowledge or permission.

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