On Wednesday, Mediterranean Savings, an Italian nonprofit organization with a mission to rescue migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe, one of its founders was conducted on WhatsApp users. He said it was one of the targets of recent spyware campaigns.
In a press release, Mediterranea said WhatsApp had notified founder Luca Casarini that last week that WhatsApp had been targeted by Spyware, created by Israeli surveillance technology startup Paragon Solutions. On Friday, WhatsApp said it used Paragon Spyware, which targeted around 90 people, to disrupt the spying activities.
At the time, the meta-owned company said that among its goals there were journalists and civil society members without any name. Since then, several targets have begun to move forward, including Casarini.
The first was Francesco Cancellato, director of FanPage.it, an Italian news website that published an investigation into organized crime and corruption. Last year, the publication showed some members of the youth wings of the Italian government singing about fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, chanting Nazi slogans and making racist remarks. I’ve reported a documentary about.
After Kanserat, who also appeared in front of Sweden-based activist Husam El Gomati. Ergomati was critical of how Libya and Italy cooperated to stop immigrants from crossing the Mediterranean. And now, Casarini is the latest person notified by WhatsApp.
All three targets have one thing in common. Their work, or the work of the organization, was critical of the current Italian government, led by far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“Sea rescue operations and support for those who have been imprisoned or deported to the deserts in Libyan camps are the focus of attention, especially for the secret Italian services operated in Libya and Tunisia.” . “Some questions arise. Did the Italian government allow such an operation? Does the Italian Secret Service use Paragon software?”
inquiry
Do you have more information about Paragon and this spyware campaign? From non-work devices, you can safely contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai with a signal of +1 917 257 1382, via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or send an email. You can also contact TechCrunch via SecureDrop.
So far, the Italian government has not answered that question, nor has the government commented on the Cancerato or Casarini incident.
The Italian government has made TechCrunch’s request for comments and questions, including whether Italy has purchased Paragon spyware through its official news agency email address and the address of Meloni’s director of news agency Fabrizio Alfano. It has not responded.
Israeli news site Ynetnews reported on Monday that Italy is a Paragon customer.
John Fleming, executive chairman of Paragon’s US subsidiary, did not respond to requests for comment on Casarini’s case and did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Fleming told TechCrunch that Paragon, which was acquired by US private equity fund AE Industrial in December, said, “It mainly sells its products to select groups, primarily in the US and its allies.
“(Paragon) requires that all users agree to terms that explicitly prohibit illegal targeting of journalists and other civil society individuals. A zero-tolerance policy for such targeting is Yes, and terminate your relationship with a customer that violates our Terms of Use,” Fleming said in a statement.
Fleming has yet to answer questions about Paragon, including whether the Italian government is a customer, whether Paragon is investigating the WhatsApp allegations, and whether it is investigating the target claims that have appeared so far. .
Mediterranea said Citizen Lab, the University of Toronto digital rights group, has been researching Spyware for over a decade, but has been doing it over a Casarini phone call.
John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, confirmed with TechCrunch that he is actively investigating Paragon.
Scott-Railton warns that these cases are another reminder that the mercenary spyware industry, which has companies such as NSO groups and Paragon, has been promoting abuse for many years, even in democratic countries. I did.
“If you’re selling secret surveillance to your democracy, you still need to be very skeptical of your customers and assume the possibility that abuse may be lurking in every corner, otherwise you don’t. , chooses intentional ignorance. To me, this refers to the basics of the mercenary spyware model. That is, when selling surveillance tools, it’s the question of when technology is abused, It’s not whether that’s going to happen or not.