In a press release, Mediterranea said WhatsApp notified its founder Luca Casarini last week that he had been targeted with spyware made by Paragon Solutions, an Israeli surveillance tech startup. On Friday, WhatsApp said it had disrupted an espionage campaign using Paragon spyware that targeted around 90 people.

A spyware attack linked to Paragon Solutions has affected WhatsApp users in over two dozen countries, including Italy. Targeting journalists and activists, the government is investigating the incident,

WhatsApp has revealed it has disrupted a spyware hacking campaign targeting journalists and prominent members of civil society. The spyware in question belongs to Paragon, a commercial spyware company founded by former Israeli intelligence officers, which Meta-owned WhatsApp has directly implicated in the campaign.

WhatsApp said users in several European countries were targeted with Paragon spyware, according to the Italian government.

Italy's government said on Wednesday that seven mobile phone users in the country had been targeted by spyware on Meta Platforms' WhatsApp messaging service, and it called the incident "particularly serious".

An official for WhatsApp told Reuters around 90 users were hacked and declined to say who was specifically targeted. The people who were hacked were sent electronic documents that