Google has been tracking the activities of commercial spyware vendors for years, and taking steps to protect people. Just last week, Google testified at the EU Parliamentary hearing on “Big Tech and Spyware” about the work we have done to monitor and disrupt this thriving industry.
Seven of the nine zero-day vulnerabilities our Threat Analysis Group discovered in 2021 fall into this category: developed by commercial providers and sold to and used by government-backed actors. TAG is actively tracking more than 30 vendors with varying levels of sophistication and public exposure selling exploits or surveillance capabilities to government-backed actors.
Our findings underscore the extent to which commercial surveillance vendors have proliferated capabilities historically only used by governments with the technical expertise to develop and operationalize exploits. This makes the Internet less safe and threatens the trust on which users depend.
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Source: Google Threat Analysis Group