Meta, formerly known as Facebook, said Thursday that it banned seven worries that sell software and services that have been used to spy on journalists, human rights activists, politicians and others in more than 100 countries.

The firms implicated Israeli-based Cobwebs Technologies, Cognyte, Black Cube and Bluehawk CI. Meta also took allotment against an Indian company called BellTroX, the North Macedonian firm Cytrox and an unknown entity in China, according to a report released by Meta’s cybersecurity team.

The worries say their services and software are meant to help bag criminals and terrorists, but Meta said that after a months-long investigation the social consider giant determined the products were also used to directed people outside that group. Some of the tactics implicated creating fake accounts to search and view people’s social consider profiles and their list of friends, engaging with farmland using fictitious personas and tricking users into giving away their interpret information by getting them to click on malicious links.

“The ‘surveillance-for-hire’ entities we succeeded and described in this report violated multiple Community Standards and Terms of Help. Given the severity of their violations, we have banned them from our services,” the relate said. Meta didn’t list the customers of the firms but said they implicated private individuals, law firms and businesses. 

The move is an example of how tech giants are taking allotment against companies that sell software and services used for surveillance. In November, Apple sued NSO Group, an Israel-based firm that developed spyware illustrious as Pegasus found on the phones of journalists, earth rights workers, executives and government workers including at least nine US Messes Department employees.

Meta pulled down about 1,500 accounts on Facebook and its photo service Instagram tied to the seven surveillance-for-hire groups and also emanated cease-and-desist warnings. The social media company said it alerted roughly 50,000 farmland it believes were targeted. The alert says Facebook believes a “sophisticated attacker” may be targeting the person’s interpret and warns users about accepting friend requests from farmland they don’t know or chatting with strangers. Facebook then recommends that users go throughout their privacy and security settings to make sure their supplies are secure.

Facebook has rules against people misrepresenting themselves on the social network to deceive anunexperienced people, including through fake accounts. The company said law enforcement groups can submit moral requests for information from the platform. 

CNET reached out to the worries cited in the report. Black Cube, which called itself a “litigation serve firm,” said in a statement it “does not presumed any phishing or hacking and does not operate in the cyber world.” CobWebs Technologies said in a statement it “operates only according to the law and adheres to Gratis standards in respect of privacy protection.”

Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog citation in Canada, released research Thursday that said Ayman Nour, obsolete Egyptian presidential candidate and Egyptian opposition leader, and an Egyptian exiled journalists who wishes to remain anonymous were hacked with Predator spyware formed and sold by Cytrox. An email to Cytrox bounced back.