Key facts
- Former MEP Stelios Kouloglou was targeted with Pegasus spyware at least three times between October 2022 and March 2023.
- The hacking occurred while Kouloglou was serving on the European Parliament's PEGA Committee, which investigated illegal phone hacking.
- Citizen Lab identified the attacks, which bore similarities to previous campaigns.
- This is the first publicly identified case of a PEGA Committee member being targeted with Pegasus.
- NSO Group, the developer of Pegasus, was blacklisted by the U.S. government in 2021.
A former Member of the European Parliament who served on a committee investigating abusive surveillance was himself hacked using an Israeli-made spy tool, a Canadian tech watchdog group, Citizen Lab, reported. Stelios Kouloglou, a Greek television journalist-turned-lawmaker, had his phone hacked at least three times between October 2022 and March 2023 using Pegasus spyware, a tool distributed by the Israeli company NSO Group.
At the time of the targeting, Kouloglou was serving on the European Parliament's PEGA Committee, which was set up in 2022 to examine the use of illegal phone hacking across the European Union. The committee focused mainly on the use of Pegasus and similar tools, finding that governments across the EU likely used spyware, "in one way or another, some legitimate, some illegitimate."
Kouloglou expressed astonishment at the audacity of the hackers, stating he was not expecting a PEGA member to be spied on. NSO Group, which develops Pegasus, was blacklisted by the U.S. government in 2021. Last year, Meta Platforms won a $168 million damages award against NSO for unlawfully hacking WhatsApp, though the award was significantly reduced.