Italy says seven people targeted by spyware on Whatsapp

6/2/2025 6:08

Italy's government said on Wednesday that seven mobile phone

users in the country had been targeted by spyware on Meta

Platforms' WhatsApp messaging service, and it called

the incident "particularly serious".



Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's office said it asked the

National Cybersecurity Agency to look into the affair, while

denying any involvement, after reports that a journalist and a

well-known migrant rescue activist had been targeted.



Luca Casarini, co-founder of the Mediterranea Saving

Humans charity, showed Reuters the spyware alert he had received

from WhatsApp on Friday. It was the same day Meta publicly

accused surveillance company Paragon Solutions of targeting

roughly 90 users in more than two dozen countries, including an

unspecified number of reporters and activists.



In a statement, Meloni's office said the cybersecurity

agency was informed by WhatsApp, via a law firm, about seven

confirmed cases in Italy, but was not told the names of the

people affected, "to protect their privacy."



ACN was also told that spyware was found among WhatsApp

users in other European Union nations, namely Belgium, Greece,

Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark,

Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.



Meta's announcement, which was paired with a

cease-and-desist letter to Paragon, alleged that the reportedly

American-owned company had tried to steal data from its users

using a sophisticated technique that required no interaction

from its target, known as a "zero click" hack.



Meta declined to comment on the message sent to Casarini.

Paragon and its owner, Florida investment group AE Industrial

Partners, did not immediately respond to emails.



Casarini is often criticized by anti-migrant, pro-government

newspapers in Italy for his charity's work saving migrants in

the Mediterranean, where Africans desperate to reach European

shores in overcrowded boats often capsize.



Casarini has previously been prosecuted for allegedly

abetting illegal immigration, and he told Reuters that his

communications had been intercepted as part of that case. But he

said he did not know who was behind the attempt to break into

his phone flagged by WhatsApp or whether it was judicially

sanctioned.



"It's a violation of democracy," he said.



Casarini's disclosure came a few days after Italian

journalist Francesco Cancellato outed himself as the recipient

of one of the WhatsApp alerts on Friday.



Cancellato told Reuters that his online newspaper Fanpage

specialized in undercover investigations, notably a recent

expose of Meloni's youth wing which showed members describing

themselves as fascists and shouting the Nazi slogan, "Sieg

Heil."



Cancellato said he was shocked by the intrusion but wanted

to reserve judgment about who was behind the hacking until his

newspaper had conducted its own investigation.