Mesay Mekonnen...[working for] a news service based in Northern Virginia...in December...[was hit by a] sophisticated cyber­attack...[A] nonprofit research lab has fingered government hackers in...Ethi­o­pia as the likely culprits, saying they apparently used commercial spyware...This burgeoning industry is making surveillance capabilities...available to governments worldwide. The targets of such attacks often are political activists, human rights workers and journalists...even after they have fled to supposed safety...[In] the United States...laws prohibit unauthorized hacking but rarely succeed in stopping intrusions. The trade in spyware itself is almost entirely unregulated...Citizen Lab says the spyware used against Mekonnen...appears to have been made by Hacking Team...Hacking Team declined to comment on whether Ethi­o­pia was a customer...The company also said it does not sell its products to countries that have been blacklisted by the United States, the United Nations and some other international groups...By selling spyware, “they are participating in human rights violations,” said Eva Galperin, who tracks spyware use for the Electronic Frontier Foundation...Rabe, the Hacking Team official, said that the company does not itself deploy spyware...and that, when it learns of allegations of human rights abuses by its customers, it investigates...and sometimes withdraws licenses.