According to a report released by Facebook’s parent company Meta this week, it has removed hundreds of accounts over the past year that are tied to spyware and surveillance-for-hire firms. These companies often sell hard-to-detect spyware to foreign governments and other bad actors who want to gather intel on high-profile users.

“Our threat research shows that the global surveillance-for-hire industry continues to grow and indiscriminately target people — including journalists, activists, litigants and political opposition — to collect intelligence, manipulate and compromise their devices and accounts across the internet,” Meta wrote in its report.

The company says that it took action against spyware vendors in multiple countries, including China, Russia, India, and the U.S. The products sold by these firms were being used to target users in about 200 countries worldwide. In addition to disabling these accounts, Facebook said that it shared its findings with lawmakers and security researchers, issued cease and desist letters to the offending companies, and warned users who may have been affected. This is all part of what Facebook says is a wide-ranging approach across governments, civil society, and industry that is necessary to defeat this problem. And while that goal is still far from happening, at least the company is making progress.

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