Italian authorities confirmed {that a} journalist who was alerted by WhatsApp final yr of a suspected spy ware assault on his cellphone was certainly hacked.
In a press launch despatched to journalists on Thursday, the general public prosecutors’ places of work in Rome and Naples, that are investigating the spy ware scandal within the nation, stated {that a} technical report concluded that the telephones of journalist Francesco Cancellato, in addition to Giuseppe Caccia and Luca Casarini, two immigration activists, all confirmed traces of getting been contaminated with spy ware on the “early hours” of December 14, 2024.
“The execution of three consecutive assaults on the identical night time means that they might have been a part of the identical an infection marketing campaign,” the technical report stated, in response to the press launch.
The complete report just isn’t but public.
That is the primary impartial affirmation that Cancellato, who’s the director of the information web site Fanpage, was hacked with spy ware. In January 2025, Cancellato and round 90 different individuals, together with journalists and members of civil society, had been alerted by WhatsApp that they’d been focused with spy ware made by Paragon Options, an Israeli-based firm now owned by American personal fairness agency AE Industrial.
Based on the press launch, Italian judicial authorities inspected the Paragon spy ware server utilized by the intelligence company, AISI, to focus on the telephones of its targets. Whereas the judicial authorities discovered proof of operations towards Caccia and Casarini, it discovered no proof of an operation towards Cancellato.
It stays unclear who hacked Cancellato’s cellphone.
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Do you will have extra details about Paragon, and this or different spy ware campaigns? From a non-work system, you possibly can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Sign at +1 917 257 1382, or by way of Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or e mail.
By June 2025, an investigation by the Italian Parliamentary Committee for the Safety of the Republic, often called COPASIR, concluded that Italian intelligence businesses had lawfully focused Caccia and Casarini, however the committee discovered no proof of a hack towards Cancellato.
The prosecutors’ places of work stated they’ll proceed to analyze to determine Cancellato’s hackers.
The Italian authorities, led by far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni, has denied being behind the hack on Cancellato. In response to a query by the journalist throughout a press convention in January, Meloni solely stated that her authorities “is providing all its help and all of the solutions it might probably present to assist make clear this problem.”
The Italian authorities didn’t reply to information.killnetswitch’s request for remark.
“We’re asking for readability,” Cancellato stated in an article on Thursday. “And we’ve got not acquired it from the federal government, which has remained silent every time attainable for a yr. And when it didn’t stay silent, it advised lies.”
John Scott-Railton, one of many Citizen Lab researchers who investigated the Paragon instances in Italy, stated that the brand new revelation about Cancellato’s hack “raises severe questions on why no affirmation was surfaced in prior official investigations by the Italian authorities.”
In response to the scandal, Paragon, whose spy ware known as Graphite, cancelled its contracts with its Italian authorities clients.
Spy ware scandals unfold throughout Europe
Aside from Caccia, Casarini, and Cancellato, there have been a number of different individuals in Italy who had been recognized as spy ware targets, together with Ciro Pellegrino, who additionally works at Fanpage and was alerted of a suspected assault on his iPhone by Apple final yr. Researchers on the Citizen Lab later concluded that Pellegrino was hacked with Paragon spy ware.
The technical report talked about by the prosecutor’s places of work, nevertheless, stated it solely discovered proof of spy ware on the telephones of Caccia, Casarini, and Cancellato, however not Pellegrino and one other 4 people who find themselves alleged victims.
“I’m fairly disconcerted,” Pellegrino, who stated he has not seen the total technical report but, advised information.killnetswitch. “How is it attainable that Citizen Lab, an authority on spy ware, discovered proof that Paragon’s Graphite was on my cellphone, whereas the Italian prosecutors’ specialists didn’t? And why would Apple ship me the alerts? For enjoyable?”
The prosecutor’s places of work in Rome and Naples didn’t reply to a request for remark.
A spokesperson for the Polizia Postale, which is investigating the case, referred information.killnetswitch to the prosecutor’s places of work.
Paragon, which as of final yr had an energetic contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and REDLattice, an organization that merged with the spy ware maker after the acquisition by AE Industrial, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Italy is the latest European nation in recent times to have been embroiled in a spy ware scandal, after related instances in Greece, Hungary, Poland, and Spain.
On the finish of final month, a Greek courtroom sentenced Tal Dilian and three different executives of the spy ware maker Intellexa to eight years in jail for unlawful wiretapping and privateness violations.
The sentencing was a part of the so-called “Greek Watergate” scandal, through which the Greek authorities was accused in 2022 of hacking the telephones of politicians, journalists, businesspeople, and army officers with Intellexa’s spy ware Predator.
