The Israeli company behind the controversial Pegasus spyware has been added to a US trade blacklist.
Pegasus has reportedly been used by nation states to target the phones of rights activists and journalists.
The US has now put its maker, NSO Group, on its “entity list”, banning business dealings with them.
NSO Group said it was “dismayed” by the decision, adding that its technology helped maintain US national security by “preventing terrorism and crime”.
It has long maintained that its software is sold only to military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies from countries with good human rights records.
But earlier this year, it was accused of having sold its technology to authoritarian governments, which then targeted innocent people.
On the face of it this is a surprising move by the US government.
The US and Israel are close allies, with their respective cyber-experts having co-operated, for example, to restrain Iran’s nuclear programme.
