Israel Granting Fewer Export Licenses to Spyware Companies, Report Says
Israel’s Defense Ministry is granting fewer export licenses to the country’s spyware companies amid mounting pressure from the U.S., according to an April 25 report from Globes, an Israeli business news site. The report said Israeli company Nemesis was forced to shut down last month after the country’s Defense Export Control Agency refused to grant it export licenses, and other industry executives have complained about an “abrupt change in policy” toward companies exporting spyware. Other companies -- including NSO Group, Cognyte, QuaDream and Wintego -- are on a “short list” of businesses that have struggled in recent months from a “lack of approvals for new deals and cancellation of export permits that have expired,” the report said.
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Israel’s Defense Ministry told Globes that it has “tightened supervision over the past year on cyber exports” and revised its “‘end user declaration' that every country is required to sign as a condition for receiving licenses.” The U.S. Commerce Department last year added Israeli companies NSO Group and Candiru to the Entity List for supplying spyware to foreign governments that then use the technologies for malicious purposes (see 2111030010).