The U.S. government has banned European commercial spyware manufacturers Intellexa and Cytrox, citing risks to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. The vendors have been added to an economic blocklist for trafficking in cyber exploits.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added four commercial entities to its Entity List: Intellexa S.A. from Greece, Intellexa Limited from Ireland, Cytrox Holdings Zrt from Hungary, and Cytrox AD from North Macedonia.
The Entity List maintained by the BIS is a trade control list created and maintained by the U.S. government that identifies foreign individuals, organizations, companies, and government entities that are subject to specific export controls and restrictions due to their involvement in activities that threaten the U.S. national security or foreign policy interests.
This decision was made due to the four companies’ involvement in trafficking cyber exploits used to gain unauthorized access to the devices of high-risk individuals worldwide, threatening their security and privacy.
According to the U.S. State Department, the deployment of these surveillance tools on a worldwide scale aimed to intimidate political adversaries, suppress dissent, restrict freedom of speech, and keep track of journalists’ and activists’ activity, thereby sustaining a climate of repression and human rights violations.
Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) linked the Cytrox in May 2022 with multiple zero-day vulnerabilities used to deploy Predator spyware on Android devices.
Intellexa was tagged as the maker of the Predator Android spyware and its loader Alien by Security researchers at Cisco Talos and the Citizen Lab.
Intellexa’s mercenary spyware has been linked to various surveillance operations targeting high-profile European politicians, journalists, and Meta executives.
The inclusion of these spyware entities in the Entity List builds upon previous regulatory measures taken by the U.S. government to address the risks associated with commercial spyware companies.
Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Grave stated that this rule reaffirms the protection of human rights worldwide as a fundamental U.S. foreign policy interest. The Entity List remains a powerful tool in the arsenal to prevent bad actors around the world from using American technology to reach their nefarious goals.
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