- Italian citizens were targeted by paragon spyware, the government says
- A malicious PDF file was used to implement malware through whatsapp
- Paragon has since canceled his contract with Italy
The Italian government has confirmed in a statement that seven of its citizens and many others throughout Europe were targeted by Israeli Spyware Company Paragon solutions.
The zero-click attack campaign used a malicious PDF file to infect users’ devices through WhatsApp Messenger. The Italian ruling party, Fratelli d’Italia, has denied any involvement in the campaign.
FANPAGE.IT, whose director was targeted as part of the campaign, confirmed Paragon to his contract with the Italian government not to comply with the “ethical framework” laid down in the agreement.
Paragon is targeting EU citizens
WhatsApp and its law firm Advant told the Italian national cybersecurity agency that seven Italian WhatsApp users were the goals of paragon, but their identities could not be revealed due to concerns about privacy.
Outside Italy, Citizens of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Holland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden also became targeted in the campaign based on country codes.
The victims were mainly journalists and other members of civil society, WhatsApp confirmed last week after accusing paragon for the spyware campaign and issued a cessation and relinquishing a letter.
Earlier this week, Paragon also stated that the US and “allies” were customers in the company and said the company has a “zero-tolerance policy” for the “illegal targeting of journalist and other civil society figures”, with paragon further saying to say That it would “end our relationship with any customer” found in violation of this rule.
The Italian government also stated that as WhatsApp Ireland Limited is the European Meta operator, only EU members are included in the list of countries, which potentially indicated that countries outside Europe were also targeted in the campaign.
