Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, former Israeli intelligence officer Tal Dilian, Sophie in’t Veld, member of the European Parliament (back, from left); French President Emmanuel Macron, lender Eran Davidson and culture investor Yoram Roth (front, from left).
European Spyware Consortium Supplied Despots and Dictators
The Intellexa Alliance is the name of the shady group of European companies that supplies dictators and despots with cyberweapons. The mass spyware attacks have also been lucrative for some in Germany.
By Sven Becker, Rafael Buschmann, Max Hoppenstedt, Nicola Naber und Marcel Rosenbach
05.10.2023, 23.02 Uhr
One message, one link, one click. That’s all it takes to lose control of your digital life, unwittingly and in a matter of seconds. Greek reporter Thanasis Koukakis has experienced it.
The message sounded innocuous enough, like one of the many tips journalists are regularly sent. “Thanasis, have you heard about this?” When he clicked on the link in summer 2021, a small program installed itself imperceptibly on his phone. It opened the door to the spyware program Predator, a virtual beast of prey.
Suddenly, Koukakis was completely exposed, and remained so for 10 weeks. The software allowed the attackers to see where the reporter was moving, who he was talking to, who he was sending which messages to and what he was researching. Koukakis has spent years reporting on corruption, keeping a close eye on the powerful in Greece, and his work has appeared on the satellite news station CNN and in the Financial Times. Now, though, his informants were in danger of being exposed.
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