Former EU lawmaker investigating Pegasus hacked by Pegasus

A former member of the European Parliament who served on a committee investigating spyware abuses was himself repeatedly targeted by the Pegasus spyware, according to a report published on Friday, July 3, 2026. The digital forensics group Citizen Lab said the phone of Stelios Kouloglou, a Greek journalist and former lawmaker, was infected at least twice, in October 2022 and March 2023.

At the time of the infections, Kouloglou was a substitute member of the European Parliament’s PEGA Committee, a body established in 2022 to examine the illegal use of surveillance tools like Pegasus across the European Union. The report marks the first public identification of a committee member being hacked with the very spyware under investigation.

Citizen Lab researchers said the attacks exploited a then-unknown vulnerability in Apple software, which has since been patched. The spyware, developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, can turn a phone into a powerful surveillance device, accessing messages, photos, location data, and microphone audio without user interaction.

The timing of the hacks coincided with critical phases of the committee’s work. The October 2022 infection occurred while...