Vas Panagiotopoulos

U.S.-sanctioned Chinese tech giant Huawei headhunts Israeli hackers ***

Huawei seeks top 🇮🇱Israeli talent with experience in exploits research and offensive cyber. Experts warn: It's legal – but could lead to sensitive knowledge leaking to 🇨🇳China and even 🇮🇷Iran, writes @haaretzcom.bsky.social’s Omer Benjakob.

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

Austria legalising the use of spyware without proper safeguards, and the former Austrian Chancellor Kurz being a lobbyist for the sector, connected to Peter Thiel and NSO. Well, well, well.

Austrian government faces likely legal challenge over state spyware | Computer Weekly The Austrian government is likely to face legal challenges after it succeeded on its fifth attempt to pass a law this month giving the country’s intelligence service legal powers to deploy spyware on ...

The 🇦🇹Austrian government is likely to face legal challenges after it succeeded on its fifth attempt to pass a law this month that gives the country’s intelligence service legal powers to deploy #spyware on phones and computers.

www.computerweekly.com/news/3666281...

Huge win for justice against mercenary spyware!

Congratulations to @davidgreene.bsky.social & @eff.org colleagues

I write about Loujain's case and the @citizenlab.ca's investigations into it in my book, Chasing Shadows chasingshadowsbook.ca

One of the most courageous people I've ever met

Google took a month to shut down Catwatchful, a phone spyware operation hosted on its servers | TechCrunch Google has suspended the Firebase account of Catwatchful following a TechCrunch investigation. The spyware operation was caught using Google's own servers to host and run its surveillance app, which w...

Google has suspended the account of phone surveillance operator Catwatchful, which was using the tech giant’s servers to host and operate the monitoring software, writes @zackwhittaker.com.

techcrunch.com/2025/07/25/g...

AI slop and fake reports are exhausting some security bug bounties | TechCrunch "We're getting a lot of stuff that looks like gold, but it's actually just crap,” said the founder of one security testing firm. AI-generated security vulnerability reports are already having an effec...

NEW: Security researchers are increasingly using AI to find flaws and report them to bug bounty platforms.

And just like other LLM-produced content, the reports include hallucinations. Coupled with the AI-powered increased volume of reports, this is causing problems for some bug bounty platforms.

Hundreds, if not more, of cases of #spyware abuse by EU governments against their critics, but so far ZERO convictions. Most cases cannot even be brought to court. The delays in the Greek case are absurd, but at least the matter is still in court. #Koukakis #Seaford @vaspanagiotopoulos.com

Iranians Targeted With Spyware in Lead-Up to War With Israel More than a dozen Iranians’ mobile phones were targeted with spyware in the months prior to the country’s war with Israel, according to new research.

Miaan Group, a digital human rights organization based in Austin, Texas, found a number of 🇮🇷Iranians who received threat notifications from Apple in the first half of 2025, and researchers believe they only identified a fraction of the total #spyware targets.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Spyware trial set to resume in September | eKathimerini.com The trial of four company executives linked to Greece’s Predator spyware scandal is scheduled to resume on September 24 after a long postponement during which the case files were translated into Engli...

⚖️ The trial of four company executives linked to 🇬🇷Greece’s Predator #spyware scandal is scheduled to resume on 24 September after a long postponement during which the case files were translated into English.

www.ekathimerini.com/politics/127...

Pegasus spyware maker rebuffed in efforts to get off trade blacklist Executives from NSO Group, the controversial Israeli manufacturer of Pegasus spyware, are in Washington this week for meetings with Republican officials.

Recent reporting by @ellenwapo.bsky.social, E. Dwoskin, @aaronschaffer.com suggests that when National Security Council aides realised NSO’s underlying goal was removal from the trade blacklist, they balked & cancelled a planned meeting with the company in May.
www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

⚠️ NSO Group spent at least 💰$130,000 on lobbying in 🇺🇸Washington in Q2 2025 via the Vogel Group and Chartwell Strategy – but its efforts to get off the US Commerce Department’s Entity List have so far been rebuffed.

The Israeli businessmen who 'invested' $25 million to buy off Mexico's former president ***

Two Israeli businessmen had 'invested' as much as 💰$25 million in President Enrique Peña Nieto of 🇲🇽 Mexico. In return, they profited from deals with his government – including a contract with NSO Group. ✍️ @haaretzcom.bsky.social's Gur Megiddo.

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

Breaking: UK sanctions Russian cyber spies accused of facilitating murders Eighteen members of Russia's GRU have been sanctioned by the British government for operations including military strikes that killed hundreds of civilians in Ukraine.

🚨🇬🇧🇷🇺

The UK government sanctioned 18 Russian military intelligence officers on Friday, alleging their units were responsible for cyber reconnaissance operations including those leading to hundreds of murders through the targeting of civilians in Ukraine.

(Breaking story here, we'll be updating it.)

#Greece is the lowest-ranked EU country in the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index, ranking 89th out of 180 countries. RSF & other press freedom orgs sent a joint letter to Prime Minister Kyriákos Mitsotákis urging his government to take 7 measures to safeguard his country's press freedom.

Prominent Human Rights Group Flees El Salvador

🇸🇻 “Mr. Bullock said Cristosal had been threatened and surveilled for years — including with Pegasus #spyware installed on phones — but the organization’s leadership now felt it would not have any legal recourse if its employees were detained.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/w...

Just a reminder for everyone interested in #surveillance, #privacy, #datajustice (& more) research and activism to mark off 9-12 June 2026 in your calendars, for the 11th biennial @survstudiesnet.bsky.social conference in Lille, France...

Paragon-Skandal: Staatstrojaner gegen Journalisten in Europa Der Journalist Francesco Cancellato wurde mit einem Staatstrojaner von Paragon gehackt. Er berichtet in Brüssel über seinen Fall und das Mauern der italienischen Regierung. Wie reagieren die europäisc...

"MEPs are asking: What are 🇪🇺 EU institutions actually doing? After all, Meloni's govt is also involved in the Paragon scandal. Short answer: they are ducking away. And where they position themselves, they have no solutions," writes Constanze Kurz in @netzpolitik.org.

netzpolitik.org/2025/paragon...

Trump administration to spend $1 billion on 'offensive' hacking operations | TechCrunch A top Democrat criticized the move to spend a billion on offensive hacking operations as the budget guts a billion from U.S. cyber defense.

The 🇺🇸Trump administration, through the Department of Defense, plans to spend 💰$1 billion over the next four years on what it calls “offensive cyber operations.”

✍️ @lorenzofb.bsky.social

techcrunch.com/2025/07/14/t...

I am honoured and excited to be delivering a keynote @blackhatevents.bsky.social 🇺🇸 2025

Come hear about the history of @citizenlab.ca, our investigations into mercenary spyware and other abuses, and what keeps me up at night!

www.blackhat.com/us-25/briefi...

NGOs demand NSO sanctions and pension fund exit from Gaza-linked firms Campaigners accuse state pension fund of backing Israeli arms firms profiting from Israeli military action in Gaza

A coalition of NGOs has urged the 🇱🇺Luxembourg government to impose sanctions on Israeli #spyware firm NSO Group and called on the country’s sovereign pension fund to divest from companies allegedly linked to human rights abuses in Gaza.

www.luxtimes.lu/luxembourg/l...

Spain awards Huawei contracts to manage intelligence agency wiretaps Huawei will manage and store judicially authorized wiretaps in Spain, under a contract that bucks the trend of Western governments restricting use of the Chinese tech company's products and services.

The Spanish government is using Huawei to manage and store judicially authorized wiretaps in the country used by both law enforcement and intelligence services, despite concerns about how the Chinese government could compel Huawei to assist Beijing with its own intelligence activities.

Can an ‘ethical’ spyware maker justify providing its tech to ICE? | TechCrunch Analysis: In calling itself an ethical spyware vendor, Paragon has opened itself up to scrutiny of its government customers.

⚠️ Nine months on, Paragon Solutions’ contract with 🇺🇸 ICE remains in limbo, and officials in the Trump White House did not have an update on its status, writes @lorenzofb.bsky.social.

techcrunch.com/2025/07/11/c...

Former Mexican president investigated over allegedly taking bribes from spyware industry The investigation comes in response to an account in the Israeli business publication TheMarker, which reported that the contracts included a deal to buy Pegasus — the powerful spyware manufactured by...

Mexico's Attorney General has launched a probe into allegations that former 🇲🇽President Enrique Peña Nieto took bribes from Israeli businessmen who allegedly paid him as much as $25m to secure govt contracts for #spyware & other tech.

✍️ @suzannesmalley.bsky.social

therecord.media/former-mexic...

Appeals court revives Salvadoran journalists’ lawsuit against NSO Group The appellate court on Tuesday sent the case back to the lower court for further consideration, saying it had “abused its discretion” and improperly applied the law when deciding Salvadoran journalist...

A 🇺🇸 US federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that a district court erred when it dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of 🇸🇻 Salvadoran journalists against #spyware maker NSO Group whose product was allegedly used against them, writes @suzannesmalley.bsky.social.

therecord.media/appeals-cour...

New spyware strain steals data from Russian industrial companies Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky said the campaign has already affected over 100 victims across several dozen Russian organizations, but did not disclose the specific targets.

Hackers are targeting 🇷🇺Russia’s industrial sector with a new #spyware strain that steals sensitive internal documents, local researchers warned, writes @darynant.bsky.social.

therecord.media/spyware-stra...

Good news. @knightcolumbia.org wins their appeal to have the El Faro journalists' lawsuit against NSO Group remanded to the court for re-consideration after it was thrown out for jurisdictional reasons.

Here's our @citizenlab.ca report that kicked it all off 👇
citizenlab.ca/2022/01/proj...

Interesting context that ODNI is reportedly targeting IARPA—the intelligence community's R&D lab, basically—whose director resigned last week, as @peard33.bsky.social first reported www.wired.com/story/iarpa-...

The G7 condemned transnational repression, but will Canada meet its own commitments? A statement against this practice was a welcome sight, but will mean very little without concrete action

Canada 🇨🇦 makes many pledges re: regulating spyware, protecting victims of transnational repression, and protecting human rights.

But words must be followed by actions.

My latest @theglobeandmail.com on the G7 Leaders' Statement on Transnational Repression

www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/3d51c5f...

CBP Wants New Tech to Search for Hidden Data on Seized Phones Customs and Border Protection is asking companies to pitch tools for performing deep analysis on the contents of devices seized at the US border.

NEW: CBP wants new tech that can find a “hidden language” in text messages; identify specific objects, “like a red tricycle,” in videos; access chats in encrypted messaging apps; and “find patterns” in large data sets. @carolinehaskins.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/cbp-wa...

Cybersecurity Flaws Plagued EU Border Control System, Audit Shows An information-sharing system used by EU border forces to flag illegal immigrants and suspected criminals in real time was rife with software and security vulnerabilities, according to emails and conf...

New by @oliviasolon.bsky.social ( @bloomberg.com) and @tomasstatius.bsky.social ( @lighthousereports.com): a EU border control system - with biometric info on 1.7 million people - has extremely serious cybersecurity issues.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This is why these stories are important: