Why Students, Programmers, Etc Must Join Tech Giants Fight Commercial Spyware Vendors

By Cami Ezenwa

The Tech giants Versus Commercial Spyware Vendors Battle, is one war that students, corporate entities, politicians, programmers, entrepreneurs, in fact, anyone who uses computers for work or leisure must enlist in.

They should not just enlist in, but fight on the side of the side of the tech giants. The simple is that it stands, or is already affecting their life, careers and total wellbeing. For now, the tech giants are confronting the commercial spyware vendors head-on behalf of these other indifferent but wholly connected stakeholders.

The why and how of this war should be clear in a short while in the course of this article, the same way it will avail you, where and why you should line up.

And you cannot afford to be ignorant of it.

For a start, what is a spyware?

It is simply a dangerous programming created and deployed to conduct targeted and undercover surveillance and collect sensitive data from users’ devices, usually without their knowledge and consent.

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Of course, this they do, deploying highly developed malware, which are however disguised as legitimate software. So, such commercial spywares are used to steal messages, eavesdrop on calls, and track location, usually for a profit.

The lucrative nature of such stolen and sensitive information has thus made commercial spyware vendors, important, in fact, on hot demand.

And they usually have opponents of the government and others likely to be critical of its activities form part of the class which commercial spyware are usually used monitor.

Others are social influencers, civilian activists, journalists and opinion molders, and other non-criminal individuals.

Aside other factors, it said that increasing suspicious between the global democracies and their autocratic counterparts, fuels trade in vital or classified information, and that is like setting the commercial spyware trade loose.

The twist to the illegal trade is that governments especially dictatorial regimes, have been fingered promoting the trade. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) argues that Autocratic leaders increasingly using misinformation, repression of civil society and media censorship have the tendency to procure spyware services.

According to the Carnegie Corporation, referencing data collected for its global inventory of commercial spyware and digital forensics, between 2011 and 2023, at least seventy-four governments contracted with commercial firms to obtain spyware or digital forensics technology.

Tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta and BAE Systems backed by about 24 nations are spearheading the onslaught against the commercial spyware vendors.

Their rallying point is the Pall Mall Process, a new agreement initialed to checkmate the vendors and these countries have signed the agreement. The US is there; so it the United Kingdom and France and 22 other nations. Good enough, the African Union have also signed.

The US has gone a step further in the push, with its State Department resolving to deny visas for individuals that it deems to be involved with the misuse of dangerous spyware technology.

READ ALSO: These Mobile Apps Will Steal Your Personal Data, NCC Warns

Google, which has been very vocal through its Google’s Threat Analysis Group also says thus far, there are about 40 commercial spyware vendors.

The Eagle ICT desk will keep a tab and from time to time update our dear readers on latest developments.