Mythical Beasts and Where to Find Them
Despite its contribution to human rights harms and national security risks, the proliferation of spyware remains rife. A significant channel for this proliferation is sale through a global market, of which most public information is known about only a handful of vendors. While some of these entities have achieved infamy, like NSO Group and the Intellexa Consortium, most others have largely flown under the radar.
The Mythical Beasts project addresses this meaningful gap in contemporary public analysis on spyware proliferation, pulling back the curtain on the connections between 435 entities across forty-two countries in the global spyware market. These vendors exist in a web of relationships with investors, holding companies, partners, and individuals often domiciled in different jurisdictions.
Markets Matter - A Glance into the Spyware Industry
The Intellexa Consortium, a complex web of holding companies and vendors for spyware and related services, have been the subject of recent, extensive sanctions by the US Department of the Treasury and the focus of reporting by the European Investigative Collaborations among others. The Consortium represents a compelling example of spyware vendors in the context of the market in which they operate—one which helps facilitate the commercial sale of software driving both human rights and national security risk. This paper addresses an international policy effort among US partners and allies, led by the French and British governments, as well as a surge of US policy attention to address the proliferation of this spyware.