A Year On, Paragon Has Told Italian Magistrates Nothing About the Graphite Spyware Attacks
More than a year after Italian magistrates sent formal requests to Israeli authorities seeking information about the Paragon spyware scandal, they are still waiting. Not for partial answers, not for redacted documents, not for a meeting. For anything at all.
The finding comes from an investigation by Wired Italia, which through qualified sources, official documents and civic access requests has reconstructed the state of the Italian judiciary’s attempts to obtain technical information about the Graphite spyware attacks discovered on Italian soil in early 2025. The conclusion is unambiguous: Paragon Solutions, the Israeli company that makes Graphite, has provided no useful cooperation to Italian justice.
What Graphite Is and What Happened
Paragon Solutions was founded in 2019 and produces Graphite, a surveillance software capable of infiltrating smartphones and extracting messages, contacts, photographs and other data without the target’s knowledge. In early 2025 it emerged that the software had been used to infect the devices of individuals in Italy, including journalists and civil society figures. The revelation caused immediate political controversy and prompted judicial investigations into both the attacks themselves and the question of who had authorised their use.
Paragon’s public response at the time was to express willingness to cooperate with authorities investigating alleged abuses of its products. That willingness has not translated into action. Italian magistrates seeking technical confirmation of the attacks, details of who purchased and deployed the software, and documentation of the infections have received no substantive response from either the company or Israeli authorities.
The Israeli Government’s Role
The Wired Italia investigation makes a point that goes beyond Paragon specifically. The lack of cooperation is not simply a corporate decision. It reflects the Israeli government’s broader policy of treating its surveillance technology industry as a strategic national asset, shielding companies it considers sensitive from foreign legal scrutiny.
This pattern is not new. Pegasus, the spyware produced by NSO Group, another major Israeli company in the sector, has been at the centre of scandals over alleged abuses in Poland, Spain and Hungary. In each of those cases, activists, journalists and lawyers who spoke to Wired Italia described the same dynamic: Israeli authorities and companies declining to cooperate with foreign investigations, leaving victims without technical confirmation of what was done to their devices and by whom, and leaving courts without the evidence needed to establish responsibility.
The result is a structural impunity. Spyware is deployed, infections are discovered, investigations are opened, requests are sent, and nothing comes back. The cycle repeats.
Why This Matters for Italy
The Italian case has particular resonance because of who was targeted. Among those whose devices were found to be infected were journalists and individuals connected to civil society organisations, categories whose protection from state surveillance is considered fundamental to democratic functioning. The question of whether Italian state actors were involved in authorising or procuring the surveillance has not been answered, partly because the technical evidence needed to answer it sits with a company that has declined to share it.
Italy is also not a peripheral player in this story. It is an EU member state with a functioning judiciary and a formal mutual legal assistance framework with Israel. If Israeli companies and authorities will not cooperate with Italian magistrates operating within that framework, the question of what the framework is actually worth becomes impossible to avoid.
According to activists, journalists and lawyers interviewed by Wired Italia, the failure of Israeli authorities and companies to cooperate has already obstructed the determination of responsibility in multiple European cases. Italy is the latest, and the most documented, example of that obstruction.
Where the Investigation Stands
Italian magistrates are continuing their work. They have the infections, they have the victims, and they have the formal requests sitting unanswered in Tel Aviv. What they do not have is the technical cooperation that would allow them to build a complete picture of what happened, who authorised it, and who is responsible.
Paragon has said publicly that it investigates alleged abuses and terminates contracts with clients found to have misused its technology. It has not shared the results of any such investigation with Italian authorities.
The phones were infected. The requests were sent. The silence continues.
