Edward Snowden, who made a fuss around the world by leaking the secret activities of the US National Security Forces (NSA), has called on the governments of various countries to impose a global moratorium on spyware trade, not just to make malware an industry.
He also said that if this is not done, no mobile phone will be safe from state-backed hackers in the world.
Speaking to the British daily The Guardian, Snowden expressed concern about spyware, saying law enforcement agencies would have to break into a person’s home, or go near a car, or go to their office, to set up bugs in conventional police operations or to wiretap a suspect’s phone. Yes, they can. But commercial spyware is giving more people the opportunity to target surveillance at an affordable price. If they can do the same thing remotely, at little cost and without any risk, they will always start doing it, even against someone who may be out of doubt.
Snowden added that if you do nothing to stop the sale of such technology, it will no longer be a target of 50,000. It will become a target of 50 million, and it will happen much faster than anyone could have imagined.
Calling for a halt to the malware trade, the former US National Security Agency contractor added that commercial malware, such as Pegasus, is so powerful that ordinary people can do nothing to stop it. Because, commercializing the vulnerabilities of widely used phone models is deliberately trying to create new strains of the disease. In fact, these are not protection products at all. These are not protection against any kind of disease. They don’t make antidotes – they just sell viruses.