Graphite Caught: First Forensic Confirmation of Paragon’s iOS Mercenary Spyware Finds Journalists Targeted
On April 29, 2025, a select group of iOS users were notified by Apple that they were targeted with advanced spyware. Among the group were two journalists who consented to the technical analysis of their cases. In this report, we discuss key findings from our forensic analyses of their devices. Our analysis finds forensic evidence confirming with high confidence that both a prominent European journalist (who requests anonymity), and Italian journalist Ciro Pellegrino, were targeted with Paragon’s Graphite mercenary spyware. We identify an indicator linking both cases to the same Paragon operator. * Apple confirms to us that the zero-click attack deployed in these cases was mitigated as of iOS 18.3.1 and has assigned the vulnerability CVE-2025-43200.
