Intellexa | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The U.S. Department of State on Monday said it's taking steps to impose visa restrictions on 13 individuals who are allegedly involved in the development and sale of  commercial spyware  or who are immediately family members of those involved in such businesses. "These individuals have facilitated or derived financial benefit from the misuse of this technology, which has targeted journalists, academics, human rights defenders, dissidents and other perceived critics, and U.S. Government personnel," the department  said . The names of those subjected to visa restrictions were not disclosed, but the move comes more than two months after the U.S. government said it's  enacting a new policy  that enforces visa constraints on people engaging in practices that could threaten privacy and freedom of expression. It also aims to counter the misuse and proliferation of commercial spyware that has been put to use by authoritarian gover...

The U.S. government on Tuesday added two foreign commercial spyware vendors, Cytrox and Intellexa, to an economic blocklist for weaponizing cyber exploits to gain unauthorized access to devices and "threatening the privacy and security of individuals and organizations worldwide." This includes the companies' corporate holdings in Hungary (Cytrox Holdings Crt), North Macedonia (Cytrox AD), Greece (Intellexa S.A.), and Ireland (Intellexa Limited). By adding to the economic denylist, it prohibits U.S. companies from transacting with these businesses. "Recognizing the increasingly key role that surveillance technology plays in enabling campaigns of repression and other human rights abuses, the Commerce Department's action today targets these entities' ability to access commodities, software, and technology that could contribute to the development of surveillance tools that pose a risk of misuse in violations or abuses of human rights," the Bureau of Indus...