The United Nations Security Council held a historic meeting on Tuesday to discuss the dangers of commercial spyware, marking the first time this type of software has been addressed at the Security Council. The meeting, called by the United States and 15 other countries, aimed to "address the implications of the proliferation and misuse of commercial spyware for the maintenance of international peace and security."

While the meeting was largely informal and did not result in concrete proposals, most participating countries, including France, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, agreed that governments should take action to control the proliferation and abuse of commercial spyware. However, Russia and China dismissed the concerns, with Russia pointing blame at the United States and China criticizing the meeting itself.

John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, a human rights organization that has investigated spyware abuses since 2012, testified at the meeting, sounding the alarm on the proliferation of spyware made by "a secretive global ecosystem of developers, brokers, middlemen, and boutique firms." Scott-Railton warned that this ecosystem "is threatening international peace and security as well as human rights."

Scott-Railton also highlighted Europe as "an epicenter of spyware abuses" and a fertile ground for spyware companies, referencing a recent TechCrunch investigation that showed Barcelona has become a hub for spyware companies in recent years. Representatives of Poland and Greece, countries that have faced their own spyware scandals involving software made by NSO Group and Intellexa respectively, also intervened at the meeting.

Poland's representative pointed to local legislative efforts to put "more control, including by the judiciary, on the relevant operational activities of the security and intelligence services," while also recognizing that spyware can be used in a legal way. The Greek representative, on the other hand, pointed to the country's 2022 bill to ban the sale of spyware.

Russia's representative took a different stance, blaming the United States for creating "a veritable system for global surveillance and illegal interference in the private life of their own citizens, and citizens of other countries, and continue perfecting this system." China's representative criticized the meeting itself, saying that discussing "the so-called commercial spyware and the maintenance of international peace and security is putting the cart before the horse when compared to the more harmful proliferation activities by governments."

China's representative also referred to the Stuxnet malware, developed as part of a U.S.-Israeli operation aimed at sabotaging Iran's nuclear weapons program, as an example of more harmful cyber weapons. The representative argued that the proliferation of advanced national cyber weapons has created a series of major Internet risks, which are far more harmful than commercial spyware.

The meeting comes as the U.S. government has taken several actions against commercial spyware, including sanctioning the Israeli spyware makers NSO Group and Candiru, as well as Greece-based Intellexa and its founder Tal Dilian. The U.S. government has also imposed travel bans against people involved in the spyware industry. Last year, people who work or used to work in the spyware industry expressed concerns that the sanctions and other punitive measures would personally affect them.

The UN Security Council's discussion on commercial spyware marks a significant step towards acknowledging the threats posed by this type of software. As the proliferation of commercial spyware continues to raise concerns about international peace and security, human rights, and individual privacy, it remains to be seen what concrete actions governments and international organizations will take to address these issues.