At 2:48 pm on Frances at 2:48 pm, Francescan Cerate received an ominous notice on a mobile phone while in a house near Milan.
“This is a message from WhatsApp,” read the Italian message acquired by TechCrunch. “In December, WhatsApp has interrupted the activities of a spyware company, which seems to have attacked the device. According to our survey, it may have received harmful files via WhatsApp, and the spyware was saved on the device. It is shown that the data containing the message may have been accessed. ”
“We have made changes to prevent this specific attack from occurring again, but the device operating system may be infringed for spyware,” continued the message.
Cancellato is the first target to move forward after the disclosure of a hackin guidance run using the spyware created by Paragon Solutions, as claimed by WhatsApp on Friday.
At that time, WhatsApp stated that spy campaigns were targeted for about 90 people, including journalists such as Cancerato and members of civil society around the world, including Europe.
“I feel violated,” said Technicrunch. He initially thought that the message was a scam or a joke. “I always think that journalists may be eavesdropped or spy, but you do it more from your own delusions and to drive away the fact that you might be. When you say it is true, you always think it is something else. “
Then he noticed it was real. “You ask yourself, why me? What did they want me?”
“That’s the first question. The second question is what they did from me. Where did they go? What did they do to me? They are on my mobile phone. After entering, basically my life, my vacation, my friendship, my family password, “Who is the third question?”
Cancellato is a director of FANPAGE.IT, an Italian news website known in the far -right ruling youth, led by corruption, organizational crime, Catholic Church, and Georgia Meloni.
For a survey of the multi -part last year, the fan page covered the reporter and covered the investigation, and invaded the Meloni’s Frateli Italian Party, Jeventi Meloniana, which has dominated Italy since 2022. did. He sings a song about the racist’s remarks for Jews and the blacks, the slogan of N words and the Nazi, and singing about Fascist’s dictator Benite Mussolini.
inquiry
Do you have more information about Paragon and this spyware campaign? You can send Lorenzo Franceschi-BICCHIERAI with a +1 917 257 1382 signal from a work other than work, via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb. You can also contact TechCrunch via Securedrop.
Cancerato is a journalist, and his job is to report the news. But he didn’t want to guess who was behind it. At this point, there are many unexplored questions. Includes whether his phone was actually hacked, targeted, what the hacker chased, and who ordered the attack.
WhatsApp says that the hacking campaign will sell products to spy to spy to spy, like the Forbes reported in 2021, to spy to spy encrypted apps such as Graphite and Signal. He stated that it was executed by Paragon Solutions.
WhatsApp spokesman did not respond to the comments asking if the company could confirm that Cancellato was the target.
The Guardian quoted a person close to the company because Paragon Solutions said that it had sold its product to 35 Democratic government clients. Israel’s news outlet Ynetnews reported on Monday that Italy was a Paragon customer.
On Monday, the Guardian reported that the Sweden -based Libyan activist, Fusham El Gomati, was one of the targets of the hacking campaign. Ergomati criticizes the relationship between Italy and Libya, especially the agreement between the two countries that immigrants from crossing the Mediterranean.
TechCrunch did not receive an answer after contacting Fabrizio Alfano, the head of Meloni’s press, via email and datapp, after contacting the Italian government’s news agency.
Paragon Solutions has a reputation for being a responsible monitoring technology vendor. On an official website, the company states that “we will provide customers with ethical tools, teams, and insights to confuse threats that are difficult to handle.”
The information of an unnamed paragon solution is the company’s transactions in New Yorkers last year, and the company’s transactions with US immigrants and customs execution several months ago in September are used by other countries by other countries. He said that it was the result of the examination process that claimed that it could prevent hinders. Not an American, but not a US government
Paragon Solutions was acquired in December 2024 by American Private Equity Giant Ae Industrial Partners.
Paragon Solutions and AE Industrial did not respond to comment requests.
The Whatsapp message to Cancellato suggested that Citizen Lab, the University of Toronto, Citizen Lab.
“The message asked me,” said TechCrunch, who said that he and the fan page had contacted the authorities.
“It’s very strange that journalists are spy in Western democracy,” said Cancerato. Since the target phone is his company’s device, “It’s an attack on the fan page. It’s not an attack on me.”
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