The spyware Paragon terminates its contract with the Italian government after targeting journalists and citizens in Europe.
A group of citizens from the United States has been targeted by a spying campaign through malicious software.
The Italian government has confirmed that seven of its citizens, along with other Europeans, were targeted in an attack using spyware from the Israeli company Paragon Solutions. This attack, known as "zero-click," was carried out via a malicious PDF file that infected devices through the WhatsApp messaging platform.
The ruling party in Italy, Fratelli d’Italia, has denied any involvement in this campaign. For its part, Fanpage.it, whose director was one of the targets, stated that Paragon has canceled its contract with the Italian government for not adhering to the "ethical framework" stipulated in the agreement.
WhatsApp and its legal firm Advant notified the Italian National Cybersecurity Agency about the seven affected Italian users, though their identities have not been disclosed for privacy reasons. At the European level, citizens from countries such as Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden were also targeted by the same campaign, based on the telephone codes of each country.
Most of the victims belonged to the fields of journalism and civil society organizations. WhatsApp spoke out last week, accusing Paragon of this spyware campaign and sending a cease and desist letter. Additionally, Paragon stated that the United States and its "allies" were clients of the company and claimed to have a "zero-tolerance policy" regarding the "illicit targeting of journalists and civil society figures," promising to terminate any business relationship with those who violated this policy.
It was also indicated that, since WhatsApp Ireland Limited is Meta's European operator, only EU member states have been included in the list of affected countries, which could suggest that nations outside of Europe also experienced the effects of this campaign.
