Governments seeking to spy on dissidents and people of interest to them have driven a proliferation in commercial spyware vendors in recent years, with more cyber-weapons brokers entering the market. What was the domain of the Israel-based NSO Group is not crowded with small CSVs with varying levels of sophistication and capabilities. Their operations have significantly broader repercussions, despite targeting a small number of individuals.

CSVs account for nearly half of all Google zero-day exploits between 2014 and 2023. CSVs also accounted for 20 out of the 25 zero-day vulnerabilities that researchers from the Google TAG observed attackers exploiting in the last year. Several other firms have also highlighted the growth of CSV operations globally.

Read More: Govs Drive Sharp Growth of Commercial Spyware Cos according to Google