GoKawiilDespite a recent historic legal victory, the fight against commercial spyware may be trending in the wrong direction.
Spyware vendors over the past several years have been hit with economic sanctions, expensive lawsuits, increasing pressure, and even bans by governments, which provided some hope to security researchers and digital rights advocates that the industry was on its heels. Spyware, experts say, threatens not only journalists, human rights activists, and government officials who are frequently targeted in attacks, but also negatively impacts cybersecurity overall, as their zero-day exploits can be used by other threat actors for wider attacks.
Arguably, the brightest sign yet in the fight against the spyware industry was last month's conviction of four individuals, including Tal Dilian, founder of the spyware firm Intellexa, in the Predatorgate scandal. A Greek court found Dilian and three others guilty of several criminal charges stemming from Predator spyware attacks on political candidates and journalists, which were discovered in 2022.
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Recent developments in the US, however, may have dampened those hopes, at least temporarily. Perhaps the most notable of these came in September with a report that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had reactivated its contract with Paragon Solutions, an Israeli company known for its "Graphite" Android spyware. ICE initially signed the contract with Paragon in 2024 but it was later paused amid concerns that it violated former President Joe Biden's 2023 executive order prohibiting federal government workers from using spyware.
Other events have sparked concern among spyware opponents, from the US Treasury Department's unexpected removal of sanctions, changes in corporate ownership of major spyware vendors, and, of course, more brazen attacks. They've cast a shadow over the Predatorgate convictions and have spyware opponents feeling uneasy about the state of their fight in 2026.
"I don't want to sound too negative because this is certainly something to build on," says Rebecca White, a researcher with Amnesty International's Security Lab. "But it's pretty grim right now."
Isolated Incidents or a Shift in US Policy?
The reactivation of the Paragon Solutions contract alarmed many and was denounced by organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Access Now, other technology and civil society organizations, and US lawmakers. EFF senior staff technologist Cooper Quintin called the move "extremely troubling," noting that the company's Graphite had been used in attacks on Italian journalists and political activists.
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