A U.S. and Greek national who worked on Meta's security and trust team while based in Greece was placed under a yearlong wiretap by the Greek national intelligence service and hacked with a powerful cyberespionage tool, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and officials with knowledge of the case.
From the report:
The disclosure is the first known case of an American citizen being targeted in a European Union country by advanced snooping technology, the use of which has been the subject of a widening scandal in Greece. It demonstrates that the illicit use of spyware is spreading beyond use by authoritarian governments against opposition figures and journalists and has begun to creep into European democracies, even ensnaring a foreign national working for a major global corporation.
The simultaneous tapping of the target's phone by the national intelligence service and the way she was hacked indicate that the spy service and whoever implanted the spyware, Predator, were working hand in hand.
The latest case comes as elections approach in Greece, which has been rocked by a mounting wiretapping and illegal spyware scandal since last year, raising accusations that the government has abused the powers of its spy agency for illicit purposes.
The Predator spyware that infected the device is marketed by an Athens-based company and has been exported from Greece with the government's blessing, in possible breach of European Union laws that consider such products potential weapons, The New York Times found in December. The Greek government has denied using Predator and has legislated against the use of spyware, which it has called "illegal."
