In yet another scandal involving Israeli spyware being misused to target journalists, Paragon Solutions has reportedly terminated access to its clients in Italy following allegations that its military-grade hacking software was used to target critics of the Italian government.
The company’s spyware, called Graphite, can infiltrate mobile phones without the detection of users, providing operators complete access to messages and encrypted communications on apps like WhatsApp and Signal. According to The Guardian, WhatsApp revealed last week that Paragon’s spyware targeted 90 users across 24 countries, including journalists and civil society members.
Read: Israel’s Pegasus spyware global weapon to silence critic
Among those targeted in Italy were Francesco Cancellato, an investigative journalist whose publication exposed young fascists in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party, Husam El Gomati, a critic of Italy’s Libya policy and Luca Casarini, founder of a migrant aid NGO.
The Italian government has confirmed seven mobile users were targeted, calling the incident “particularly serious”. Prime Minister Meloni’s office denied involvement and has tasked the National Cybersecurity Agency to investigate.
A source familiar with the matter told The Guardian that Paragon terminated its contracts with Italian clients, which included intelligence and law enforcement agencies, after determining Italy had breached terms prohibiting surveillance of journalists and civil society members.
Read: Catching Pegasus: Mercenary Spyware and the Liability of the NSO Group
This incident follows the 2021 Israel Pegasus scandal, where investigations revealed widespread use of NSO Group’s spyware against journalists, activists and opposition figures globally, leading to international condemnation and calls for stricter regulation of surveillance technology.
As many as 50,000 phone numbers were said to have been selected for surveillance using the Israeli snooping technology, according to details of the investigation uncovering the hacking by the Pegasus Project, a ground-breaking collaboration by more than 80 journalists from 17 media organisations in ten countries.
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