Accusations technologies are used for spying and to crush political dissent.
Israel is easing export rules on offensive cyber weapons, despite accusations by human rights and privacy groups that its technologies are used by some governments to spy on political foes and crush dissent.
A rule change by the defence ministry means companies can now obtain exemptions on marketing licences for the sale of some products to specific countries, a source close to the cyber sector told Reuters.
Israel, like other big defence exporters, closely guards details of its weapons sales and its export rules are not widely known, but the defence ministry confirmed the change had gone into force about a year ago in response to Reuters’ questions.
Industry specialists say the change makes a speedier approval process possible for the sale of cyber weapons, or spyware, which are used to break into electronic devices and monitor online communications.
Israel’s defence ministry said the rule change “was made to facilitate effective service to Israeli industries while maintaining and protecting international standards of export control and supervision”.
It said a marketing-licence exemption was granted only under “certain conditions related to the security clearance of the product and assessment of the country toward which the product will be marketed” and that companies were still required to hold an export licence.
The Israeli government and the companies declined to comment on which neighbouring states are among spyware customers.
Read the article by Tova Cohen and Ari Rabinovitch in IT News.