The announcement comes nearly a week after 21 countries signed a voluntary and non-binding Code of Practice outlining how they intend to jointly regulate commercial cyber intrusion capabilities (CCICs) and combat spyware companies whose products have been increasingly used to target civil society. Pall Mall participants have previously told Recorded Future News that it is not clear how spyware developers will react to the Code of Practice and whether they will change their practices. Recorded Future News first reported the publication of the Code of Practice, which is the result of a year of diplomatic negotiations known as the Pall Mall Process. “You can’t slap the same rules on spyware vendors as on exploit brokers,” Alexandra Paulus, a participant from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, recently told Recorded Future News. The Code of Practice attempts to separate companies with a track record for product abuses from other market participants. If countries had not acted, Pall Mall participants have said, an unchecked CCIC market would lead to continuing abuses of the technology. Many of the industry leaders involved in the negotiations are not the vendors whose products have been used, for example, to target political opposition figures in Poland or journalists reporting on Russia.
This Cyber News was published on therecord.media. Publication date: Thu, 10 Apr 2025 21:35:41 +0000