--- title: "A spyware investigator's own phone was hacked with Pegasus, researchers find" description: "A Greek member of the European Parliament who helped investigate the misuse of surveillance software in Europe was himself infected with Pegasus, the spyware made by Israel's NSO Group, forensic researchers say. The finding is a pointed illustration of a problem the lawmaker had spent years scrutinizing." category: "Technology" category_url: https://newsparlor.com/category/technology author: "Hannah Brooks" published: 2026-07-03T05:22:00.000Z updated: 2026-07-03T05:22:00.000Z canonical: https://newsparlor.com/article/a-spyware-investigator-s-own-phone-was-hacked-with-pegasus-researchers-find tags: ["spyware", "pegasus", "nso-group", "surveillance", "european-parliament", "privacy"] --- # A spyware investigator's own phone was hacked with Pegasus, researchers find A Greek member of the European Parliament who helped investigate the misuse of surveillance software in Europe was himself infected with Pegasus, the spyware made by Israel's NSO Group, forensic researchers say. The finding is a pointed illustration of a problem the lawmaker had spent years scrutinizing. A politician who took part in Europe's own inquiry into the abuse of surveillance software has turned out to be a victim of it. Stelios Kouloglou, a Greek member of the European Parliament, was infected with the powerful spyware Pegasus, according to forensic researchers — a striking case, given that Kouloglou served on the parliamentary committee set up to investigate exactly this kind of surveillance, [TechCrunch reported](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/02/politician-who-investigated-spyware-abuses-had-his-phone-hacked-with-pegasus-spyware/). ## What the researchers found The hacking was identified by Citizen Lab, the digital-security research group at the University of Toronto that has spent years tracking the use of commercial spyware around the world. According to its analysis, Kouloglou's iPhone was compromised in October 2022 and again in March 2023 — a period when he was actively involved in the European Parliament's committee examining spyware abuses in several member states. The intrusion relied on a "zero-click" exploit, a method that requires no action at all from the target — no suspicious link to tap, no attachment to open. The victim's phone is simply taken over, giving the operator access to messages, calls, location and other data. That silent, invisible quality is part of what makes Pegasus so alarming to privacy and press-freedom advocates. ## What Pegasus is Pegasus is spyware developed by NSO Group, an Israeli company that sells it to government clients, which it says are vetted and use it to fight crime and terrorism. In practice, investigations by Citizen Lab, Amnesty International and news organizations have repeatedly found the tool deployed against journalists, activists, lawyers and opposition politicians — a pattern that has made "Pegasus" a byword for the abuse of state surveillance. Citizen Lab did not publicly name which government was behind the attack on Kouloglou. But it noted, per the reporting, that infrastructure linked to this operation had previously been used against others in Europe, pointing to a specific NSO customer. NSO Group did not respond to a request for comment, TechCrunch said. ## Why it resonates The case lands with particular force because of who the target was. Europe has spent the past few years grappling with revelations that spyware was used against journalists and politicians within the bloc, prompting the very parliamentary inquiry Kouloglou joined. That an investigator of those abuses was himself hacked underscores the central worry of critics: that these tools, sold to states, can be turned against the people meant to hold power to account — including elected officials performing democratic oversight. For journalists and civil-society groups, the chilling implication is straightforward. If a lawmaker scrutinizing surveillance can be quietly monitored, the same is plainly possible for reporters and their sources, or for critics of a government — with little way to know it is happening. ## The wider fight The finding adds to sustained international pressure on the commercial-spyware industry. NSO Group has faced lawsuits, and the United States has previously placed the company on a trade blacklist and restricted federal agencies from using such tools, part of a broader effort to curb a market that operates largely in the shadows. Regulators and courts in Europe have likewise been pressed to respond to the spyware scandals uncovered on the continent. None of that has settled the underlying tension. Governments argue that powerful surveillance is necessary against serious threats; rights groups counter that, without strict limits and real oversight, the same capabilities inevitably get misused. Cases like Kouloglou's keep that argument alive by making it concrete. ## Why it matters Beyond one lawmaker's phone, the episode is a reminder that the technology to monitor a person almost completely — silently, remotely, at a distance — now exists and is for sale. How democracies choose to regulate it, and whether they can prevent its use against the journalists, activists and politicians who scrutinize the state, is one of the defining civil-liberties questions of the digital age. That an investigator of spyware abuse ended up documented as a target of it is, if nothing else, an unusually direct statement of the stakes. ## Sources - [Politician who investigated spyware abuses had his phone hacked with Pegasus spyware](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/02/politician-who-investigated-spyware-abuses-had-his-phone-hacked-with-pegasus-spyware/)