A Canadian research group, Citizen Lab, revealed on Friday that the iPhone of former European Parliament member Stelios Kouloglou was infected with Pegasus spyware at least three times in 2022 and 2023.

Kouloglou, who served as an MEP from 2015 to 2024, was a member of the PEGA Committee, established to investigate the illegal use of Pegasus and other surveillance tools within the European Union.

The attacks occurred while Kouloglou was in Athens and Brussels. According to Citizen Lab, he received Apple threat notifications months after each intrusion.

The report highlighted the "serious threat that mercenary spyware poses to the integrity of democratic processes," noting that the breaches could have exposed confidential exchanges among PEGA Committee members and sensitive parliamentary proceedings.

Citizen Lab did not attribute the hacking to a specific government but found no evidence implicating the Greek authorities. Pegasus, developed by Israel's NSO Group, is marketed as a legitimate tool but has been used to spy on journalists and activists.

NSO Group has been blacklisted by the US regime and barred from targeting WhatsApp. The European Commission and NSO Group declined to comment. Rand Hammoud of the Center for Democracy and Technology Europe called the case a "broader failure to rein in the commercial spyware market."

Source: www.aljazeera.com