Washington
CNN
—
At least 50 US government officials are suspected or confirmed to have been targeted by invasive commercial spyware designed to hack cellphones, a senior US administration official told reporters on Monday, revealing a number far higher than what we knew before.
The revelation came as President Joe Biden issued an executive order on Monday banning US government agencies from using spyware deemed a threat to US national security or involved in human rights abuses.
Pressure has grown in recent weeks on the administration to do more to limit the use of hacking tools among other democracies following news reports that several European governments have used spyware on their citizens. A bipartisan group of US lawmakers wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken this month urging him to form an “international coalition” to fight spyware.
These hacking tools pose “distinct and growing counterintelligence and security risks to the United States, including to the safety and security of American personnel and their families,” the senior official said in an overview of the decree.
The directive targets spyware or malware sold by companies around the world that sneaks into target’s cellphones with just a few clicks.
One impetus for the executive order was the discovery in 2021 that the iPhones of a dozen US State Department employees had been hacked with spyware developed by Israeli company NSO Group, CNN reported.
The executive order reflects the Biden administration’s wide-ranging concerns that authoritarian governments and democracies can use the powerful tools of hacking to suppress opposition voices or target journalists.
The tools also directly threaten US diplomats.
Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, one of the lawmakers who has called on the Biden administration to do more on spyware, said he expects the number of government staffers Americans confirmed to be targeted by hacking tools is increasing as the United States continues to investigate the matter. .
The executive order, he told CNN, “sends a strong signal” to spyware companies that their access to the US market depends on ensuring that their technology is not misused….