The company NSO Group that develops Pegasus tracking software has a very difficult road ahead of it. The US Department of Commerce has added NSO to its blacklist of companies, which effectively bans any commercial transactions.
The move bars US companies from doing business with NSO except even if they receive express permission. But this is unlikely, since the same law does not allow exceptions.
The NSO and the Israeli company Candiru (also blacklisted) are facing charges for allowing and facilitating espionage by authoritarian governments.
It is alleged that they provided monitoring software such as Pegasus NSO to "authoritarian governments" who used it to monitor activists, journalists and other critics in an effort to crush any political disagreement.
The latest round of trade bans announced by the Department also affect Russian company Positive Technologies and Singapore's Computer Security Initiative Consultancy, which were accused of trading tools hacking.
The Commerce Department claims that it has evidence of NSO's actions, which is not encouraging for the company's future. Remember what happened to her Huawei, who is also a member of the blacklist. The company may not have closed, but it is difficult to operate without the support of the US market.
A representative of her NSO told Engadget that the company is "disappointed" by the decision and claimed that its tools helped the US "prevent terrorism and crime." The NSO has indicated that it will request the cancellation of the ban and reiterated that it complies with the "strictest" human rights standards in the world.
