U.S. Treasury sanctions Intellexa Alliance over Predator spyware, targeting officials and journalists with invasive surveillance tools.
The U.S. Treasury’s OFAC has penalized two individuals and five entities linked to the Intellexa Alliance for their involvement in creating and distributing spyware aimed at U.S. government officials and journalists.
OFAC has described commercial spyware like Predator, linked to the Intellexa Alliance, as a significant security threat. It has been deployed against U.S. targets, enabling data harvesting and surveillance.
Sanctioned individuals and entities include the Intellexa Consortium founder Tal Jonathan Dilian and corporate specialist Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou. Intellexa S.A., Cytrox AD, and others are also named.
These measures follow revelations about Predator’s infrastructure and arrive after the US unveiled visa restrictions for those involved in spyware misuse, marking a notable step in curbing such activities.
According to OFAC, the Intellexa Consortium marketed commercial spyware and surveillance technologies under the Predator brand. Designed to enable both targeted and widespread surveillance initiatives, Predator is known for its ability to compromise various electronic devices via zero-click attacks, requiring no interaction from the target to install.
Once embedded, Predator offers its operators a broad spectrum of espionage functionalities, such as data theft, location tracking, and unauthorized access to numerous apps and personal details on the infected device.