Artemis Seaford, a former security policy manager at Meta, has filed a lawsuit against Greece’s national intelligence service for wiretapping and hacking her phone in 2021.
Seaford was employed by Meta between 2020 and 2022, splitting her time between the US and Greece, where she regularly liaised with Greek and EU officials about cybersecurity policy. Seaford didn’t realize she’d been hacked until she saw her name on a list of spyware targets in November 2022. She then had her phone looked at by researchers at Citizen Lab, who confirmed that her phone was infected with Predator for at least two months from September 2021.
What is Predator?
Predator is a form is a spyware that is generally used to target high-profile targets such as journalists and politicians. Predator can infect a phone once the target clicks a specific link. It can then spy on the phone’s text messages, calls, photos, and videos. According to Google, North Macedonian commercial surveillance company, Cytrox, is believed to be behind the spyware.
Giannis Oikonomou, a government spokesman, denied the accusations: “The Greek authorities and security services have at no time acquired or used the Predator surveillance software. To suggest otherwise is wrong. The alleged use of this software by nongovernmental parties is under ongoing judicial investigation.”
Very convincing phishing
Predator infiltrated Seaford’s phone via a scarily clever yet simple social engineering attack. At the time, Seaford was making an appointment for a COVID-19 booster shot via Greece’s online vaccination platform. Immediately after, she received an automated SMS with details about the appointment, followed by an SMS asking her to click a link to confirm it. Seaford, as many would due to the timing, assumed it was legit and clicked the link. Unfortunately, it was malicious and immediately infected her phone with Predator.
A common accusation
The Register reports that this is not the first time the Greek government has been accused of spying. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis allegedly orchestrated a campaign of mass wiretapping and spying against a whole host of people, from journalists and opposition journalists to members of his own government. Furthermore, Google confirmed that Cytrox has sold zero-day exploits to government-backed spies in Greece, as well as other territories.
Three other people are known to have filed lawsuits against the Greek government for spying practices, including an investigative reporter and two opposition politicians. The EU has also begun investigating Predator.
Cora is a digital copywriter for SSLs.com. Having eight years of experience in online content creation, she is a versatile writer with an interest in a wide variety of topics, ranging from technology to marketing.