U.S.-backed Israeli spyware used to target European journalists

Spyware from a U.S.-backed Israeli company was used to target the phones of at least three prominent journalists in Europe, two of whom are editors at an investigative news site in Italy, according to digital researchers at Citizen Lab, citing new forensic evidence of the attacks.

The findings come amid growing questions about what role the government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni may have played in spying on journalists and civil society activists critical of her leadership, and raised new concerns about the potential for abuse of commercial spyware, even in democratic countries.

"Any attempts to illegally access data of citizens, including journalists and political opponents, is unacceptable, if confirmed," the European Union's executive branch said in a statement Wednesday in response to questions from members of parliament.

Meloni's office declined to comment Thursday, but a prominent member of her Cabinet has said that Italy "rigorously respected" the law and that the government hadn't illegally spied on journalists.

The company behind the hacks, Paragon Solutions, is backed by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The firm has sought to position itself as a virtuous player in the mercenary spyware industry and won U.S. government contracts, The Associated Press found.

Paragon's spyware, Graphite, was used to target around 90 WhatsApp users from more than two dozen countries, primarily in Europe, Meta said in January. Since then, there's been a scramble to figure out who was hacked and who was responsible.

"We've seen first-hand how commercial spyware can be weaponized to target journalists and civil society, and these companies must be held accountable," a spokesperson for WhatsApp told AP in an email.

"It is unacceptable in a democratic country that journalists are spied on without knowing the reason. We do not know how many there are and if there are others," Vittorio di Trapani, president of the Italian journalists' union FNSI, told the AP. "The EU should intervene. The democracy of a founding country of the union and therefore of the whole of Europe is at stake."

"Paragon is now mired in exactly the kind of abuse scandal that NSO Group is notorious for," said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab. "This shows the industry and its way of doing business is the problem. It's not just a few bad apples."

"There's no link to click, attachment to download, file to open or mistake to make," Scott-Railton said. "One moment the phone is yours, and the next minute its data is streaming to an attacker."