Anti-surveillance activists accuse them of aiding governments that in some cases are using such tools to crack down on human rights and civil rights.
The industry came under a global spotlight when the Israeli surveillance firm NSO's Pegasus spyware was in recent years found to have been used by multiple governments to spy on journalists, activists, and dissidents.While RCS Lab's tool may not be as stealthy as Pegasus, it can still read messages and view passwords, said Bill Marczak, a security researcher with digital watchdog Citizen Lab."This shows that even though these devices are ubiquitous, there's still a long way to go in securing them against these powerful attacks," he added.On its website, RCS Lab describes itself as a maker of "lawful interception" technologies and services including voice, data collection and "tracking systems." It says it handles 10,000 intercepted targets daily in Europe alone.Google researchers found RCS Lab had previously collaborated with the controversial, defunct Italian spy firm Hacking Team, which had similarly created surveillance software for foreign governments to tap into phones and computers.Hacking Team went bust after it became a victim of a major hack in 2015 that led to a disclosure of numerous internal documents.In some cases, Google said it believed hackers using RCS spyware worked with the target's internet service provider, which suggests they had ties to government-backed actors, said Billy Leonard, a senior researcher at Google.