Google denounces 40 companies, one of them from Barcelona, ​​for the creation of software to spy on mobile phones

Google just brought to light a scandal involving five companies software spy located in Italy, Greece and Spain. These companies have been accused of developing software malicious that infects and compromises the security of mobile phones around the world.

To contextualize, explain that the software Spy is, simply put, a type of computer program designed to clandestinely collect information about a user or computer system without their consent.

This type of software can be installed on a device without the user knowing, and once active, can monitor activities such as internet browsing, text messages, emails, passwords, call history, and more.

Having this as a basis, the technology giant has publicly denounced to these companies, pointing out that they are facilitating the use of quite dangerous hacking tools.

Google listed a list of about 40 companies, including a Spanish one

While many of these companies claim that their products are intended solely for use by governments to ensure national security, In practice, these are usually used to spy on ordinary citizens like anyone.

“The damage is not hypothetical. Spyware providers point to the legitimate use of their tools for law enforcement and the fight against terrorism. However, it is deployed against journalists, human rights defenders, dissidents and politicians from opposition parties,” they explain.

Of course, this is not the first scandal related to spyware and you are probably familiar with the case of software Pegasus from the Israeli company NSO, which was used to spy on people around the world. However, mention that Google report highlights that the proliferation of spy technology for malicious uses goes beyond NSO.

It reveals that many commercial companies are contributing to the problem, developing this type of software that compromises the security of everyone. According to Google’s TAG threat hunting team, the private sector is now responsible for a fairly large portion of the most sophisticated spy tools detected.

Among the companies highlighted by Google are Cy4Gate, RCS Labs and Negg Group from Italy, Intellexa from Greece and Variston from Spain.

For example, Negg Group, which is supposedly dedicated to cybersecurity, has been accused of using its software to spy on people in Italy, Malaysia and Kazakhstan. On the other hand, Variston has developed a software that infects users’ mobile phones through browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, as well as iOS applications.

“We hope this report serves as a call to action. As long as there is demand from governments, they will buy commercial surveillance technology and CSVs will continue to develop and sell spyware. We believe it is time for government, industry and society come together to change the incentive structure that has allowed these technologies to spread so widely,” Google comments in the report.