Espionage Against the European Parliament

Espionage Against the European Parliament(citizenlab.ca)

151 points by ledoge 1 hour ago | 24 comments

petcat 1 hour ago |

> In May 2026, Kouloglou contacted the Citizen Lab and we conducted a forensic analysis of artifacts from his iPhone. We found with high confidence that his device was successfully infected with Pegasus spyware on or around October 21, 2022, and again on March 6 and 7, 2023.

VWWHFSfQ 58 minutes ago | |

>> Further validating our finding of targeting, our forensic analysis shows Kouloglou received multiple Apple threat notifications about targeting with mercenary spyware on three occasions: March 2, 2023, August 29, 2023, and April 10, 2024. It is important to note that threat notifications from Apple and other companies are not real-time alerts. They are typically sent to users in batches, often months or more after targeting takes place.

>> Kouloglou reports to us that he did not recall receiving the Apple notifications we observed.

Am I understanding this correctly that Apple sent him notifications that he was being monitored and he ignored them?

pmontra 54 minutes ago | | |

"he did not recall receiving the Apple notifications" so he didn't notice them.

saintfire 19 minutes ago | | |

I mean his device was pwnd completely. Its not a stretch that attempts to warn are suppressed.

That or he didn't notice or could have assumed the notice itself was one of many phishing attempts against large orgs.

If I saw a notification that my account was compromised by Pegasus I'd personally assume phishing.

EA-3167 52 minutes ago | | |

That seems to be the case, although he claims to have somehow missed them. Overall this is one of those stories that's obviously an outrage, except for the fact that every country on Earth spies on the rest, and quite a few private entities do as well. Still the way the game is played if you get caught you have to act ashamed, and the people catching you get to gloat.

It's silly, but it's a show the public never tires of.

elorant 40 minutes ago |

Around that time a lot of politicians in Greece had their phones hacked by Pegasus. It's an ongoing scandal in Greece that never got fully resolved, although all evidence indicate that it was an operation orchestrated by the office of the prime minister in coordination with the local intelligence service. So I wouldn't call that an attack against the European parliament.

Krasnol 10 minutes ago | |

Same story in Poland:

https://notesfrompoland.com/2026/02/26/poland-charges-former...

Everything looks like a nail if you have a hammer.

bawolff 17 minutes ago |

One interesting thing here, is they imply that both confidential personal medical information and confidential gov docs might have been compromised via the same phone.

Does EU parliment not have a policy of seperating work and personal devices?

dewey 16 minutes ago | |

Having a policy and what happens in the real world are most of the time very different things (Understandably, as the line between work and personal time is often blurry).

bawolff 11 minutes ago | | |

True but one would hope though that people dealing with national security would follow more than your average employee.

shevy-java 1 hour ago |

Not quite surprising. The more important question is: how much are lobbyists paid to sell out data of EU citizens to US corporations here? Will they prevail?

There is enough money to go around for certain.

r3trohack3r 41 minutes ago | |

Pro tip: if you’re going to try a propoganda - don’t be so transparent on your redirect.

jongjong 23 minutes ago | |

It feels like they've been paid to sell out the users themselves, not just the data. It's weird that EU is so dependant on US tech when it comes to media platforms... While there are alternatives out there. In a lot of related areas in tech, it feels like suppression.

dizlexic 12 minutes ago | | |

This might be taken as hyperbolic, but the EU seems to have trouble building anything.