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Former European lawmaker says phone was hacked with Pegasus while serving on spyware committee
Stelios Kouloglou's phone was compromised at least three times between October 2022 and March 2023. The attacks occurred while he served on the committee examining illegal surveillance tools in the EU.
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Stelios Kouloglou, a former European Parliament member and Greek television journalist, had his mobile phone compromised by Pegasus spyware at least three times between October 2022 and March 2023. The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab released a report on July 3 stating that the attacks took place while Kouloglou served on the PEGA Committee.
The European Parliament established the committee in 2022 to examine the use of illegal phone-hacking tools across the EU.
Kouloglou said he was astonished at the targeting. “I was not expecting that a PEGA member would be spied on by Pegasus,” he told Reuters. Citizen Lab linked some of the Pegasus activity against Kouloglou to earlier operations against Russian- and Belarusian-speaking journalists and activists in exile.
The attacks exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Apple software that has since been patched, the group said. Kouloglou received repeated Apple warnings about state-sponsored hacking attempts in 2023 and 2024. The European Parliament stated that its IT security services constantly monitor threats and that spyware screening tools have been available to lawmakers since 2022.
A report adopted last month by the European Parliament called for extending those tools to all devices used for parliamentary business. Pegasus spyware is distributed by the Israeli company NSO Group. The U.S.
Government blacklisted NSO Group in 2021 over human rights and national security concerns. Last year Meta Platforms won a $168 million damages award against NSO Group for unlawfully hacking WhatsApp, though the award was later reduced. Last month Meta Platforms accused NSO Group of violating a court injunction and filed for a contempt order.
NSO Group has stated that its tools are used to police serious crime and protect national security. Sophie in ’t Veld, a former EU lawmaker who championed the PEGA committee’s creation, said the incident illustrated how mercenary spyware had created a surveillance free-for-all affecting citizens, journalists, NGOs, lawyers and politicians.
