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fliptop [soylentnews.org] writes:

A Greek financial journalist is one of several who believe they have been targeted for surveillance by the nation's government [gizmodo.com] 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 [reportersunited.gr] for approximately two months.

It turned out that he had been targeted with “Predator,” [gizmodo.com] 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 [gizmodo.com]. 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 [reuters.com] had surveilled the journalist. However, the government has denied [nytimes.com] that it uses Predator or maintains any association with Intellexa.

Some interesting comments [schneier.com] on Bruce Schneier's blog. Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle [blogspot.com].

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