Cybersecurity company Fox-IT offered intelligence software to repressive regimes in the Middle East between 2007 and 2011. So writes the research platform Follow The Money. Fox-IT allegedly promoted the self-developed surveillance software in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria, among others.
Fox-IT is a security company of Dutch origin, which was acquired by Britain's NCC in 2015. The cybersecurity company was in the news earlier in 2019 following investigations by research collective Buro Jansen & Jansen. The research collective wrote back then about Fox-IT's attempts to sell products in the Middle East. Follow The Money conducted additional research and interviews with business associates and former employees. This brings the case back into the spotlight.
Spyware is spy software that covertly collects information about a computer user. This information is valuable to outside parties. If this information falls into the wrong hands, it can lead to repression of politicians and journalists, for example. This was also evident last month when it was announced that hundreds of journalists may have been spied on with Pegasus, the NGO Group's eavesdropping software.
According to Follow the Money, Fox-IT has offered self-developed surveillance software in the Middle East. The company is also said to have presented these products in countries with repressive regimes. These would include the FoxReplay Analyst product. With this surveillance tool, large amounts of intercepted data can be analyzed and searched.
The software package is so powerful that it is normally sold only to government intelligence and investigation agencies. Between 2007 and 2011, however, Fox-IT did not restrict itself to governments, and customers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria, among others, were also approached. Even after the Arab Spring erupted, the company continued to promote FoxReplay in the Middle East.
Fox-IT denies that it has sold FoxReplay Analyst in the Middle East. According to former Fox-IT employees with whom Follow the Money spoke, Fox-IT did make efforts to promote its surveillance software in the Middle East.
