Paragon's Spyware Scandal Deepens as Italian Prosecutors Wait for Response
The Israeli-American surveillance tech maker Paragon Solutions has been accused of providing spyware to Italian authorities, which was used to target journalists and activists in the country. Italian prosecutors have been waiting for over a year for Paragon to respond to their requests for information about the scandal, but the company has yet to comply.
Italian authorities first received notifications from WhatsApp and Apple last year that several people in Italy, including journalists and activists, had been targeted with government spyware. The notifications prompted a scandal in Italy that is still unfolding. After being notified of the attacks, a number of victims filed criminal complaints with Italian authorities, and prosecutors then opened an investigation.
Paragon publicly called out the Italian government, claiming it refused the company's offer to investigate whether a journalist was hacked and spied on with its Graphite spyware. The company went so far as to cancel its contract with Italy's two spy agencies, AISE and AISI, in part because the Italian government turned down the company's offer to help.
However, Italian prosecutors have since sent a formal request for information to Paragon, via the Israeli government, but a year after the investigations were opened, the company has yet to respond.
The lack of cooperation from Paragon has raised questions about the company's motivations. In the history of government spyware, it's extremely rare for a company to get into a public fight with one of its former customers. Paragon's move was likely motivated by its longstanding attempts to appear as an ostensibly more righteous alternative to other spyware makers, such as NSO Group or Intellexa, which have been ensnared in countless scandals around the world.
Despite the company's claims to provide 'ethically based tools, teams, and insights,' Paragon's official website, which no longer loads, said the company provides customers with 'ethically based tools, teams, and insights.' The company has an active contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been using Paragon's spyware to counter terrorism and drug trafficking.
The scandal has also raised questions about the Italian government's involvement. Italy's government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has always denied hacking two of the journalists, Francesco Cancellato and Ciro Pellegrino, who work at the online news website Fanpage and whose phones were targeted by Paragon's Graphite. The Citizen Lab, a research organization that has investigated spyware abuses for more than a decade, confirmed both journalists were hacked with Graphite.
The other victims in the country include activists who work for Mediterranea Saving Humans, an Italian nonprofit with the mission of rescuing migrants who try to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Last June, the Italian parliamentary committee that oversees the country's spy agencies investigated the scandal, and concluded that the targeting of the activists was lawful. But also said it could not find evidence that Cancellato was targeted, and the committee did not investigate Pellegrino's case at all.
The prosecutors' investigation is still ongoing, and the lack of cooperation from Paragon has made it difficult for the authorities to get to the bottom of the scandal. Italian prosecutors have sent a formal request for information to Paragon, via the Israeli government, but the company has yet to respond.
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