SoylentNews

fliptop writes:

A Greek financial journalist is one of several who believe they have been targeted for surveillance by the nation's government with the help of Intellexa:

In late March 2021, Thanasis Koukakis was notified by a team of digital researchers that his phone had been infected with malware. A reporter who typically covers finance, Koukakis had been in the midst of investigating corruption issues when his device was infected. Research later showed that his phone had been under surveillance for approximately two months.

It turned out that he had been targeted with "Predator," a commercial spyware capable of infiltrating mobile phones and stealing pretty much everything inside of them—videos, pictures, text messages, search history, passwords, call logs, and more. Like a lot of other commercial spyware tools, Predator is typically sold to high-paying government clients—in this case, by a company called Cytrox. A secretive surveillance firm based in North Macedonia, Cytrox is owned by an Israeli parent company called Intellexa.

[...] The Greek government has, however, admitted to spying on Koukakis. In a parliamentary committee hearing in August, the head of the Greek equivalent of the CIA confessed that his agency had surveilled the journalist. However, the government has denied that it uses Predator or maintains any association with Intellexa.

Some interesting comments on Bruce Schneier's blog. Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.

Original Submission