"Spyware used against MEP investigating Pegasus abuses, report finds", 3 July 2026

NSO Group’s hacking software was repeatedly used against a member of the European parliament while he was conducting an investigation of spyware abuses in Europe, according to a new report.

Researchers at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said they could not attribute the attacks against Stelios Kouloglou to any particular government operator of Pegasus spyware. But their investigation found the attack against the Greek now-former MEP bore the hallmarks of a previous hacking campaign against exiled Russian and Belarusian journalists in Europe.

Kouloglou, a journalist who was first elected to the European parliament as a member of the Syriza party, joined the Pega committee in March 2022. His mobile device was first infected, Citizen Lab said, about seven months later, on 21 October 2022, in what was described as a “particularly intense period of activity” in Pega’s deliberations and investigations, including the drafting of the committee’s first report.

NSO did not respond to a request for comment.