Researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab confirmed that Stelios Kouloglou's phone was hacked during 2022 and 2023, marking the first time a member of the European Parliament's PEGA committee has been publicly identified as a spyware victim, TechCrunch reported.
The Citizen Lab report, published Friday, said Kouloglou was targeted in October 2022 and at least twice in March 2023 through a "zero-click" exploit that took advantage of an unpatched flaw in Apple's iPhone software, according to TechCrunch.
A Committee Investigator, Targeted
The exploit abused a previously discovered flaw in Apple's smart home software, allowing attackers to secretly harvest text messages, location data and photos from Kouloglou's phone. Notably, the October 2022 breach coincided with intense discussions over email and text ahead of a draft report on spyware abuses in Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Poland and Spain, TechCrunch noted in its report.
Anger And Legal Threat
Kouloglou described the deliberate compromise of his phone as "reckless," while one European lawmaker called it a "direct attack on the rule of law," urging the European Commission to impose strict limits on spyware use across the bloc. Citizen Lab did not attribute the hack to a specific government, but noted the attacker used the same Pegasus-linked email address seen in an earlier campaign against journalists across Europe.
No Response From NSO, Brussels
Neither the European Commission nor NSO Group responded to requests for comment. Kouloglou said he intends to sue NSO Group and is going public "for democracy, human rights, and the fight against corruption."
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