Senior officials at the European Commission were targeted last year with spy software designed by an Israeli surveillance firm, according to two EU officials and documentation reviewed by Reuters.
Among them was Didier Reynders, a senior Belgian statesman who has served as the European Justice Commissioner since 2019, according to one of the documents.
At least four other commission staffers were also targeted, according to the document and another person familiar with the matter. The two EU officials confirmed that staffers at the commission had been targeted but did not provide details.
The commission became aware of the targeting following messages issued by Apple to thousands of iPhone owners in November telling them they were “targeted by state-sponsored attackers,” the two EU officials said.
It was the first time Apple had sent a mass alert to users that they were in government hackers’ crosshairs.
Security researchers have said the recipients of the warnings were targeted between February and September 2021 using ForcedEntry, an advanced piece of software that was used by Israeli cyber surveillance vendor NSO Group to help foreign spy agencies remotely and invisibly take control of iPhones.
NSO said in a statement that it was not responsible for the hacking attempts, saying the targeting described by Reuters “could not have happened with NSO’s tools.”
The company, which faces a number of overlapping lawsuits and was recently blacklisted by U.S. officials over alleged human rights abuses, said it supported an investigation into the targeting and called for the establishment of global rules to govern the spyware industry.
Source: Agencies
