Former Ma employee is suing the Greek government over smartphone
Software

Former M**a employee is suing the Greek government over smartphone hacking and illegal surveillance

A spy scandal broke out in Greece. How informed The New York Times, former manager of Meta* on security policy, Artemis Seaford, a US and Greek citizen, sued the Greek National Intelligence Service for hacking her smartphone and illegal wiretapping.

    Image source: Pixabay

Image source: Pixabay

Seaford worked at Meta* from 2020 to 2022, where she frequently interacted with Greek and other European politicians. After Artemis Seaford saw her name on a leaked list of spyware targets in November 2022, she contacted the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which is the world’s leading expert in spyware forensics. Specialists from Citizen Lab confirmed that their smartphone was infected with Predator in September 2021 “at least two months.”

It is also reported that Greek intelligence bugged Seaford’s smartphone for about a year while she was in Greece. The way the hack was carried out suggests that Greek intelligence could also be involved.

In September 2021, Seaford signed up for a Covid-19 booster shot via the Greek government’s official vaccination platform, after which she received an automated text message with a pick-up time. After 5 hours, she received another SMS asking her to confirm her application by clicking on the link. It was an infected link after the Predator clicked into Seaford’s smartphone. The information about the upcoming vaccination in the infected SMS was correct, which indicates that someone was familiar with the actual appointment confirmation and prepared the infected message accordingly. The sender also appeared to be a government vaccination agency, and the infected URL mimicked the URL of a vaccination platform.

The Greek government, in turn, denies its involvement in the wiretapping and hacking of Seaford’s smartphone. “The Greek authorities and security services have never purchased or used the Predator tracking software. It is wrong to assume otherwise.” That said government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou. He added that an investigation into the alleged use of spyware by non-governmental organizations is underway.

The case was the first known case of a US citizen becoming a victim of surveillance in an EU country.

* It is included in the list of public associations and religious organizations for which the court made a final decision to liquidate or ban activities on the grounds provided for in Federal Law No. 114-FZ of July 25. 2002 “On Countering Extremist Activities”.

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Robbie Elmers

Robbie Elmers is a staff writer for Tech News Space, covering software, applications and services.

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