In an interview with Recorded Future News, Cancellato said he is not sure if Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government is tied to the incident, though Paragon has reportedly ended its contract with Italy. [We found] a lot of antisemitic and racist and neofascist behavior, so that made a lot of noise, because, well, of course, that's the first party in Italy, and Giorgia Meloni is Prime Minister in Italy. “I think it's only the beginning of the use of spyware,” Cancellato told Recorded Future News. I am quite sure that the attack comes from Italy, but not because of our investigation, but because of Paragon and the deal with one of the Italian investigation centers. And the other one, the recent one, was [about] Meloni's youth and we had an undercover investigation inside the Brothers of Italy. FC: If I ever knew that she or someone in the government, or someone in the administration, wanted or authorized spying on a journalist? Well, I have to change my opinion about how I can relate to a prime minister in my own country. Late last month, WhatsApp announced that 90 people had been targeted with Paragon Solutions’ spyware via their accounts on the messaging platform. As an undercover journalist covering Italian politics, Francesco Cancellato is used to reporting on scandals. While Cancellato thinks spyware is an effective means of fighting terrorism and crime, he is alarmed by how it is increasingly used to snoop on members of civil society. We are the only ones in Italy that does undercover journalism, and we basically do undercover [reporting] covering every topic, with every party.
This Cyber News was published on therecord.media. Publication date: Thu, 13 Feb 2025 16:25:06 +0000