London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 22, 2025

Polish opposition duo hacked with NSO spyware

Polish opposition duo hacked with NSO spyware

The aggressive cellphone break-ins of a high-profile lawyer representing top Polish opposition figures came in the final weeks of pivotal 2019 parliamentary elections. Two years later, a prosecutor challenging attempts by the populist right-wing government to purge the judiciary had her smartphone hacked.

In both instances, the invader was military-grade spyware from NSO Group, the Israeli hack-for-hire outfit that the U.S. government recently blacklisted, say digital sleuths of the University of Toronto-based Citizen Lab internet watchdog.

Citizen Lab could not say who ordered the hacks and NSO does not identify its clients, beyond saying it works only with legitimate government agencies vetted by Israel's Defense Ministry. But both victims believe Poland’s increasingly illiberal government is responsible.

A Polish state security spokesman, Stanislaw Zaryn, would neither confirm nor deny whether the government ordered the hacks or is an NSO customer.

Lawyer Roman Giertych and prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek join a list of government critics worldwide whose phones have been hacked using the company’s Pegasus product. The spyware turns a phone into an eavesdropping device and lets its operators remotely siphon off everything from messages to contacts. Confirmed victims have included Mexican and Saudi journalists, British attorneys, Palestinian human rights activists, heads of state and Uganda-based U.S. diplomats.

But word of the Poland hacking is especially notable, coming as rights groups are demanding an EU-wide ban on the spyware. The 27-nation European Union has tightened export restrictions on spyware, but critics complain that abuse of it by EU member states urgently needs to be addressed.

Citizen Lab previously detected multiple infections in Poland dating from November 2017, though it didn't identify individual victims then. The Pegasus spyware has also been linked to Hungary, which like Poland has been denounced for anti-democratic abuses. Germany and Spain are reportedly among NSO's customers, with Catalan separatists accusing Madrid of targeting them with Pegasus.

“Once you start aggressively targeting with Pegasus, you’ll join a fraternity of dictators and autocrats who use it against their enemies and that certainly has no place in the EU,” said senior researcher John-Scott Railton of Citizen Lab.

Former EU parliament member Marietje Schaake of the Netherlands, now international cyber policy director at Stanford University, said: “The EU cannot credibly condemn human rights violations in the rest of the world while turning a blind eye to problems at home.”

The Polish targets see the hack as evidence of a perilous erosion of democracy in the very nation where Soviet hegemony began unraveling four decades ago.

Just hours before Zaryn answered emailed questions about the hack from The Associated Press, a provincial prosecutor filed a motion seeking the arrest of Giertych, the lawyer, in a financial crimes investigation.

Zaryn did not comment on whether the two matters might be related. He said Poland conducts surveillance only after obtaining court orders.

“Suggestions that Polish services use operational methods for political struggle are unjustified,” Zaryn said.

An NSO spokesperson said Monday that the company is a “software provider, the company does not operate the technology nor is the company privy to who the targets are and to the data collected by the customers.” Citizen Lab and Amnesty International researchers say, however, that NSO appears to maintain the infection infrastructure.

The company spokesperson also called the allegations of Polish misuse of Pegasus unclear: “Once a democratic country lawfully, following due process, uses tools to investigate a person suspected in committing a crime, this would not be considered a misuse of such tools by any means.”

In July an investigation by a global media consortium found Pegasus was used in Hungary to hack at least 10 lawyers, an opposition politician and several journalists. Last month, a Hungarian governing party official acknowledged that the government had purchased Pegasus licenses.

In 2019, independent Polish broadcaster TVN found evidence the government anti-corruption agency spent more than $8 million on phone spyware. The agency denied the report but Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was more ambiguous, saying all would “be clarified in due time.”

In the last four months of 2019, Giertych was hacked at least 18 times, Citizen Lab found. At the time, he was representing former Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Civic Platform, now head of the largest opposition party, and former Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, now a European Parliament member.

The “jaw-droppingly aggressive” tempo and intensity of the targeting — day-by-day, even hour-by-hour — suggested “a desperate desire to monitor his communications,” Scott-Railton said. It was so unrelenting that the iPhone became useless and Giertych abandoned it.

“This phone was with me in my bedroom and it was with me when I went to confession. They scanned my life totally,” he said.

Most of the hacks occurred just ahead of an Oct. 13, 2019, parliamentary election that the Law and Justice party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski won by a slim margin, leading to a further erosion of judicial independence and press freedom.

Giertych was also involved representing an Austrian developer at the time who claimed that Kaczynski, Poland’s most powerful politician, stiffed him as a deal to build twin business towers in Warsaw fell apart. Revelations of that deal-gone-sour triggered a scandal because Polish law bans political parties from profit — and the towers were to be built on land owned by Kaczynski's party.

Giertych also represented Sikorski in an illegal w iretapping case in which the former foreign minister's conversations were recorded and published; Sikorski alleges the government failed to investigate the possible involvement of Kaczynski allies. Last year, anti-corruption officials searched Giertych's home and office in a manner a Polish court deemed illegal and the EU called emblematic of how Poland's government treats hostile lawyers in politically sensitive cases.

When the Lublin regional prosecutor applied for a court order Monday seeking Giertych's arrest, it said the lawyer had refused to appear for questioning, and seemed to be “deliberately hiding from justice.”

Giertych called this absurd and said the financial wrongdoing investigation was trumped-up, that a Poznan court had already dismissed it for lack of evidence. Prosecutors say he is suspected of money laundering for legal fees he received in a Warsaw property dispute case a decade ago.

Citizen Lab was still investigating how Giertych’s phone was infected but said it expects a “zero-click” vulnerability, which wouldn't involve user interaction. They believe Wrzosek was similarly hacked. Citizen Lab found six intrusions on her phone from June 24-Aug. 19.

Last year, Wrzosek ordered an investigation into whether presidential elections should be postponed over concerns they could threaten the health of voters and election workers. Almost immediately, she was stripped of the case and transferred to the distant provincial city of Srem with two days’ notice.

"I didn’t even know where the city was and I had nowhere to live there,” said Wrzosek, who was hacked shortly after returning to Warsaw and resuming media appearances critical of the government.

A vocal member of an independent prosecutors' association, Wrzosek learned she’d been hacked — and tweeted about it -- when Apple sent out alerts last month to scores of iPhone users across the globe targeted by NSO’s Pegasus, including 11 U.S. State Department employees in Uganda. In a lawsuit it filed the same day, Apple called NSO “amoral 21-century mercenaries.” In 2019, Facebook sued the Israeli firm for allegedly hacking its globally popular WhatsApp messenger app.

Wrzosek has filed an official complaint but doesn’t expect prompt accountability, believing “the same services that tried to break into my phone will now be conducting the proceedings, looking for perpetrators.”

Ewa Wrzosek, a Polish prosecutor, stands outside her office holding her phone, in Warsaw, Poland, on Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. Wrzosek, a prosecutor who is resisting a political takeover of the system of state prosecution, and an erosion of judicial independence more broadly under Poland's right-wing populist government, was the target of cellphone eavesdropping this year. She and a prominent Polish lawyer have become the first two confirmed cases involving the use of Pegasus military grade spyware against targets in Poland, where an illiberal government is eroding democratic norms.


Roman Giertych, a prominent Polish lawyer, poses for a photograph, in Rome, on Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. Giertych, a fierce opponent of Poland's right-wing ruling party who defends some opposition politicians, was the target of aggressive cellphone eavesdropping in 2019. The hacking targeting his phone and that of a Polish prosecutor are the first two confirmed cases of Pegasus military grade spyware being used against targets in Poland, where an illiberal government is eroding democratic norms.


Ewa Wrzosek, a Polish prosecutor, stands outside her office, in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. Wrzosek, a prosecutor who is resisting a political takeover of the system of state prosecution, and an erosion of judicial independence more broadly under Poland's right-wing populist government, was the target of cellphone eavesdropping this year. She and a prominent Polish lawyer have become the first two confirmed cases involving the use of Pegasus military grade spyware against targets in Poland, where an illiberal government is eroding democratic norms.


Roman Giertych, a prominent Polish lawyer, poses for a photograph, in Rome, Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021. Giertych, a fierce opponent of Poland's right-wing ruling party who defends some opposition politicians, was the target of aggressive cellphone eavesdropping in 2019. The hacking targeting his phone and that of a Polish prosecutor are the first two confirmed cases of Pegasus military grade spyware being used against targets in Poland, where an illiberal government is eroding democratic norms.




Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Apple Challenges EU Digital Markets Act Crackdown in Landmark Court Battle
Nicolas Sarkozy begins five-year prison term at La Santé in Paris
Japan stocks surge to record as Sanae Takaichi becomes Prime Minister
This Is How the 'Heist of the Century' Was Carried Out at the Louvre in Seven Minutes: France Humiliated as Crown with 2,000 Diamonds Vanishes
China Warns UK of ‘Consequences’ After Delay to London Embassy Approval
France’s Wealthy Shift Billions to Luxembourg and Switzerland Amid Tax and Political Turmoil
"Sniper Position": Observation Post Targeting 'Air Force One' Found Before Trump’s Arrival in Florida
Shouting Match at the White House: 'Trump Cursed, Threw Maps, and Told Zelensky – "Putin Will Destroy You"'
Windows’ Own ‘Siri’ Has Arrived: You Can Now Talk to Your Computer
Thailand and Singapore Investigate Cambodian-Based Prince Group as U.S. and U.K. Sanctions Unfold
‘No Kings’ Protests Inflate Numbers — But History Shows Nations Collapse Without Strong Executive Power
Chinese Tech Giants Halt Stablecoin Launches After Beijing’s Regulatory Intervention
Manhattan Jury Holds BNP Paribas Liable for Enabling Sudanese Government Abuses
Trump Orders Immediate Release of Former Congressman George Santos After Commuting Prison Sentence
S&P Downgrades France’s Credit Rating, Citing Soaring Debt and Political Instability
Ofcom Rules BBC’s Gaza Documentary ‘Materially Misleading’ Over Narrator’s Hamas Ties
Diane Keaton’s Cause of Death Revealed as Pneumonia, Family Confirms
Former Lostprophets Frontman Ian Watkins Stabbed to Death in British Prison
"The Tsunami Is Coming, and It’s Massive": The World’s Richest Man Unveils a New AI Vision
Outsider, Heroine, Trailblazer: Diane Keaton Was Always a Little Strange — and Forever One of a Kind
Dramatic Development in the Death of 'Mango' Founder: Billionaire's Son Suspected of Murder
Two Years of Darkness: The Harrowing Testimonies of Israeli Hostages Emerging From Gaza Captivity
EU Moves to Use Frozen Russian Assets to Buy U.S. Weapons for Ukraine
Europe Emerges as the Biggest Casualty in U.S.-China Rare Earth Rivalry
HSBC Confronts Strategic Crossroads as NAB Seeks Only Retail Arm in Australia Exit
U.S. Chamber Sues Trump Over $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee
Shenzhen Expo Spotlights China’s Quantum Step in Semiconductor Self-Reliance
China Accelerates to the Forefront in Global Nuclear Fusion Race
Yachts, Private Jets, and a Picasso Painting: Exposed as 'One of the Largest Frauds in History'
Australia’s Wedgetail Spies Aid NATO Response as Russian MiGs Breach Estonian Airspace
McGowan Urges Chalmers to Cut Spending Over Tax Hike to Close $20 Billion Budget Gap
Victoria Orders Review of Transgender Prison Placement Amid Safety Concerns for Female Inmates
U.S. Treasury Mobilises New $20 Billion Debt Facility to Stabilise Argentina
French Business Leaders Decry Budget as Macron’s Pro-Enterprise Promise Undermined
Trump Claims Modi Pledged India Would End Russian Oil Imports Amid U.S. Tariff Pressure
Surging AI Startup Valuations Fuel Bubble Concerns Among Top Investors
Australian Punter Archie Wilson Tears Up During Nebraska Press Conference, Sparking Conversation on Male Vulnerability
Australia Confirms U.S. Access to Upgraded Submarine Shipyard Under AUKUS Deal
“Firepower” Promised for Ukraine as NATO Ministers Meet — But U.S. Tomahawks Remain Undecided
Brands Confront New Dilemma as Extremists Adopt Fashion Labels
The Sydney Sweeney and Jeans Storm: “The Outcome Surpassed Our Wildest Dreams”
Erika Kirk Delivers Moving Tribute at White House as Trump Awards Charlie Presidential Medal of Freedom
British Food Influencer ‘Big John’ Detained in Australia After Visa Dispute
ScamBodia: The Chinese Fraud Empire Shielded by Cambodia’s Ruling Elite
French PM Suspends Macron’s Pension Reform Until After 2027 in Bid to Stabilize Government
Orange, Bouygues and Free Make €17 Billion Bid for Drahi’s Altice France Telecom Assets
Dutch Government Seizes Chipmaker After U.S. Presses for Removal of Chinese CEO
Bessent Accuses China of Dragging Down Global Economy Amid New Trade Curbs
U.S. Revokes Visas of Foreign Nationals Who ‘Celebrated’ Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
AI and Cybersecurity at Forefront as GITEX Global 2025 Kicks Off in Dubai
×