Francesco Cancellato, whose reporting exposes fascists within PM Meloni’s far-right party, condemns ‘violation’

An Italian investigative journalist who is known for exposing young fascists within prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right party was targeted with spyware made by Israel-based Paragon Solutions, according to a WhatsApp notification received by the journalist.

Francesco Cancellato, the editor-in-chief of the Italian investigative news outlet Fanpage, was the first person to come forward publicly after WhatsApp announced on Friday that 90 journalists and other members of civil society had been targeted by the spyware.

Messaging app said it had ‘high confidence’ some users were targeted and ‘possibly compromised’ by Paragon Solutions spyware

Nearly 100 journalists and other members of civil society using WhatsApp, the popular messaging app owned by Meta, were targeted by spyware owned by Paragon Solutions, an Israeli maker of hacking software, the company alleged on Friday.

The journalists and other civil society members were being alerted of a possible breach of their devices, with WhatsApp telling the Guardian it had “high confidence” that the 90 users in question had been targeted and “possibly compromised”.