Israeli Spyware Program Hacked European Parliamentarian's Phone and Investigated Surveillance Activities

SadaNews - A Canadian technology monitoring group said on Friday that a former member of the European Parliament, who worked on a committee investigating illegal surveillance, had his phone hacked using Israeli-made spyware, according to the Reuters news agency.

The "Citizen Lab" research group reported that the phone of Stelios Koulouglou, a Greek television journalist who became a parliament member, had been hacked at least three times between October 2022 and March 2023 using the "Pegasus" spyware, a tool distributed by the Israeli company NSO Group.

At the time of the targeting, Koulouglou was a member of the PEGA committee in the European Parliament, which was established in 2022 to investigate illegal phone hacking across the European Union. The committee primarily focused on the use of "Pegasus" and similar tools, concluding that governments across the bloc likely used spyware "in one way or another, some legally and some illegally."

Koulouglou expressed his astonishment at how bold the hackers were.

He told Reuters: "I did not expect that a member of the PEGA committee would be spied on by Pegasus... I did not expect them to be so reckless."

NSO did not respond to messages seeking comment.

In a statement to Reuters, the European Parliament did not directly address the Koulouglou case, but it said its IT security services "continuously monitor cybersecurity threats in addition to potential cyberattacks on the working environment."

It mentioned that spyware monitoring tools have been available to all members since 2022, and a report adopted last month called for their expansion to include all devices used for parliamentary work.

The European Commission has yet to respond to messages seeking comment.

NSO has previously stated that its spyware tools are used to combat serious crime and protect national security, but the company has faced repeated allegations of facilitating unjustified surveillance of journalists, political opponents, civil rights activists, and religious figures worldwide.

The U.S. government blacklisted NSO in 2021 due to human rights and national security concerns.

Last year, a ruling awarded Meta Platforms, the owner of WhatsApp, $168 million in damages from NSO for illegally hacking the platform, although the amount was significantly reduced. Last month, Meta accused NSO of violating a court order that prevents targeting its services.

The "Citizen Lab" group believes that Koulouglou's phone was hacked through an unknown vulnerability in Apple software at that time. It added that Koulouglou received repeated warnings from Apple in 2023 and 2024 about government-backed hacking attempts.

"Citizen Lab" did not identify who used the "Pegasus" program to target the former parliament member.

Apple did not directly respond to questions concerning Koulouglou but stated that the security vulnerability highlighted in the "Citizen Lab" report has been fixed, and it regularly issues alerts to those targeted by hacking attempts.