European Parliament Member Investigating Spyware Was Hacked With Pegasus

A new report from the Citizen Lab has revealed that former Member of the European Parliament Stelios Kouloglou had his mobile device repeatedly hacked with the notorious Pegasus spyware while serving on a committee that was tasked with investigating the abuse of such commercial surveillance tools in the bloc. "Through forensic analysis of his device, we found that the attackers could have had

According to Citizen Lab and media reports, former MEP Stelios Kouloglou’s iPhone was repeatedly compromised with the commercial Pegasus surveillance toolkit in 2022 and 2023 while he served on the European Parliament’s PEGA committee investigating spyware abuse.[2][1] Pegasus, operated by state or state-linked actors, enabled full device compromise, including access to communications and potentially sensitive committee data.[2][1] These are facts from public reporting on state-level use of advanced spyware, not AI-specific incidents. From a CyberSE.AI perspective, Pegasus exemplifies high-end, targeted malicious use of algorithmically driven surveillance tooling against policymakers, underscoring the need for strict device-hardening, secure communications policies, and governance controls for any AI-enabled or algorithmic tools used in parliamentary, corporate, or critical-infrastructure contexts.