WhatsApp reveals massive surveillance of activists.
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Spyware was used to track journalists and activists in Italy and several European countries. According to the Italian government, cyberattacks affected citizens of at least 14 countries, including Italy. This became known after the discovery of a large-scale spying campaign, which was announced by WhatsApp.
Italy's National Cybersecurity Agency (ANC) is conducting an investigation into hacking attempts involving the Israeli company Paragon Solutions. Italian authorities have officially denied government involvement in this campaign and said that neither journalists nor activists were subject to surveillance by intelligence agencies.
Among the victims were a journalist who wrote about the ruling far-right party, Giorgi Meloni, a migrant rights advocate, and a Libyan activist living in Sweden. WhatsApp has handed over the location data of the cyberattack victims to the Italian authorities.
The hackers targeted phones with numbers registered in Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. According to WhatsApp, the attack was carried out using commercial spyware from Paragon Solutions, a remote surveillance tool that does not require user interaction.
WhatsApp found that the attackers used malicious PDF files to infect the victims' smartphones. The company assured that the vulnerability was quickly closed. Representatives of Paragon Solutions declined to comment on the incident . However, the company's chairman previously said that the United States and its allies are among its clients , without specifying which countries have access to the software.
In September 2024, Mythical Beasts project specialists conducted a large-scale study of the global spyware market to identify its participants and their connections. They focused on those companies that developed and sold software used for illegal surveillance of citizens, journalists and political opponents. This market remains extremely closed and poorly understood, despite obvious threats to human rights and national security.
