Italian prosecutors confirm journalist was hacked with Paragon spyware

Italian authorities confirmed that a writer who was alerted by WhatsApp past twelvemonth of a suspected spyware onslaught connected his telephone was so hacked. 

In a property merchandise sent to journalists connected Thursday, the nationalist prosecutors’ offices successful Rome and Naples, which are investigating the spyware ungraded successful the country, said that a method study concluded that the phones of writer Francesco Cancellato, arsenic good arsenic Giuseppe Caccia and Luca Casarini, 2 migration activists, each showed traces of having been infected with spyware connected the “early hours” of December 14, 2024. 

“The execution of 3 consecutive attacks connected the aforesaid nighttime suggests that they whitethorn person been portion of the aforesaid corruption campaign,” the method study said, according to the property release. 

The afloat study is not yet public.

This is the archetypal autarkic confirmation that Cancellato, who is the manager of the quality website Fanpage, was hacked with spyware. In January 2025, Cancellato and astir 90 different people, including journalists and members of civilian society, were alerted by WhatsApp that they had been targeted with spyware made by Paragon Solutions, an Israeli-based institution now owned by American backstage equity steadfast AE Industrial. 

According to the property release, Italian judicial authorities inspected the Paragon spyware server utilized by the quality agency, AISI, to people the phones of its targets. While the judicial authorities recovered grounds of operations against Caccia and Casarini, it recovered nary grounds of an cognition against Cancellato. 

It remains unclear who hacked Cancellato’s phone.

By June 2025, an probe by the Italian Parliamentary Committee for the Security of the Republic, known arsenic COPASIR, concluded that Italian quality agencies had lawfully targeted Caccia and Casarini, but the committee recovered nary grounds of a hack against Cancellato. 

The prosecutors’ offices said they volition proceed to analyse to place Cancellato’s hackers. 

The Italian government, led by far-right premier curate Giorgia Meloni, has denied being down the hack connected Cancellato. In effect to a question by the writer during a property league successful January, Meloni lone said that her authorities “is offering each its assistance and each the answers it tin supply to assistance clarify this issue.”

The Italian authorities did not respond to TechCrunch’s petition for comment.

“We are asking for clarity,” Cancellato said successful an article connected Thursday. “And we person not received it from the government, which has remained soundless whenever imaginable for a year. And erstwhile it didn’t stay silent, it told lies.”

John Scott-Railton, 1 of the Citizen Lab researchers who investigated the Paragon cases successful Italy, said that the caller revelation astir Cancellato’s hack “raises superior questions astir wherefore nary confirmation was surfaced successful anterior authoritative investigations by the Italian authorities.”

In effect to the scandal, Paragon, whose spyware is called Graphite, cancelled its contracts with its Italian authorities customers.  

Spyware scandals dispersed crossed Europe

Apart from Caccia, Casarini, and Cancellato, determination were respective other people successful Italy who were identified arsenic spyware targets, including Ciro Pellegrino, who besides works astatine Fanpage and was alerted of a suspected onslaught connected his iPhone by Apple past year. Researchers astatine the Citizen Lab aboriginal concluded that Pellegrino was hacked with Paragon spyware.

The method study mentioned by the prosecutor’s offices, however, said it lone recovered grounds of spyware connected the phones of Caccia, Casarini, and Cancellato, but not Pellegrino and different 4 radical who are alleged victims. 

“I’m beauteous disconcerted,” Pellegrino, who said helium has not seen the afloat method study yet, told TechCrunch. “How is it imaginable that Citizen Lab, an authorization connected spyware, recovered grounds that Paragon’s Graphite was connected my phone, portion the Italian prosecutors’ experts did not? And wherefore would Apple nonstop maine the alerts? For fun?”

The prosecutor’s offices successful Rome and Naples did not respond to a petition for comment. 

A spokesperson for the Polizia Postale, which is investigating the case, referred TechCrunch to the prosecutor’s offices. 

Paragon, which as of past twelvemonth had an progressive contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and REDLattice, a institution that merged with the spyware shaper aft the acquisition by AE Industrial, did not respond to a petition for comment. 

Italy is the astir caller European state successful caller years to person been embroiled successful a spyware scandal, aft akin cases successful Greece, Hungary, Poland, and Spain. 

At the extremity of past month, a Greek tribunal sentenced Tal Dilian and 3 different executives of the spyware shaper Intellexa to 8 years successful situation for amerciable wiretapping and privateness violations. 

The sentencing was portion of the alleged “Greek Watergate” scandal, successful which the Greek authorities was accused successful 2022 of hacking the phones of politicians, journalists, businesspeople, and subject officials with Intellexa’s spyware Predator.