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WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department announced Tuesday it has sanctioned two people and a Greece-based commercial spyware company headed by a former Israeli military officer that developed, operated and distributed technology used to target U.S. government officials, journalists and policy experts. Amnesty International’s Security Lab in October published a report that said that Predator had been used to target but …

The story so far: Between May and September, former Egyptian MP Ahmed Eltantawy was targeted with Cytrox’s Predator spyware sent via links on SMS and WhatsApp. While spyware may be used for commercial purposes like advertising, malicious spyware is used to profit from data stolen from a victim’s device. Commercial spyware, such as the Pegasus spyware from the NSO group, …

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government will restrict its use of commercial spyware tools that have been used to surveil human rights activists, journalists and dissidents around the world, under an executive order issued Monday by President Joe Biden. The order “demonstrates the United States’ leadership in, and commitment to, advancing technology for democracy, including by countering the misuse of commercial …