Spyware companies

Download Valley is a cluster of software companies in Israel, producing and delivering adware to be installed alongside downloads of other software. The primary purpose is to monetize shareware and downloads. These software items are commonly browser toolbars, adware, browser hijackers, spyware, and malware. Another group of products are download managers, possibly designed to induce or trick the user to install adware, when downloading a piece of desired software or mobile app from a certain source.

Cytrox is a company established in 2017 that makes malware used for cyberattacks and covert surveillance. Its Predator spyware was used to target Egyptian politician Ayman Nour in 2021 and to spy on 92 phones belonging to businessmen, journalists, politicians, government ministers and their associates in Greece. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Commerce added the Cytrox companies Cytrox AD in North Macedonia, and Cytrox Holdings Crt in Hungary to its Entity List.

Candiru is a private Tel Aviv-based company founded in 2014 which provides spyware and cyber-espionage services to government clients. Its management and investors overlap significantly with that of NSO Group. Its operations began being uncovered in 2019 by researchers at Citizen Lab, Kaspersky, ESET (among others). Microsoft refers to the company's cyber-espionage operations as "Caramel Tsunami/SOURGUM" while Kaspersky refers to it as "SandCat"

Softonic is a Spanish software download platform that distributes, categorizes, and evaluates programs for Windows, Android, and Mac. The platform was founded in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, in June 1997.

Claria Corporation (formerly Gator Corporation) was a software company based in Redwood City, California that invented “Behavioral Marketing”, a new form of online advertising. It was founded in 1998 by Denis Coleman (co-founder of Symantec), Stanford MBA Sasha Zorovic (Saša Zorović), and engineer Mark Pennell, based on work Zorovic had done at Stanford. In March 1999 Jeff McFadden was hired as CEO and Zorovic was effectively forced out.

NSO Group Technologies (NSO standing for Niv, Shalev and Omri, the names of the company's founders) is an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance of smartphones. It employed almost 500 people as of 2017.

Gamma Group is an Anglo-German technology company that sells surveillance software to governments and police forces around the world. The company has been strongly criticised by human rights organisations for selling its FinFisher software to undemocratic regimes such as Egypt and Bahrain.

Endgame provides a cyber operations platform supporting the detection, exploitation, and mitigation of cyber-threats. Endgame was started by executives from ISS (Internet Security Systems).

Genieo Innovation is an Israeli company, specializing in unwanted software which includes advertising and user tracking software, commonly referred to as a potentially unwanted program, adware, privacy-invasive software, grayware, or malware. They are best known for Genieo, an application of this type. They also own and operate InstallMac which distributes additional 'optional' search modifying software with other applications. In 2014, Genieo Innovation was acquired for $34 million by Somoto, another company which "bundles legitimate applications with offers for additional third party applications that may be unwanted by the user". This sector of the Israeli software industry is frequently referred to as Download Valley.

Paragon Solutions is an Israeli Spyware company. Paragon has tried to market itself as more responsible than other spyware vendors especially as competitors like NSO Group and Intellexa have been involved in scandals.