Cancellato is the first target to come forward following the disclosure of a hacking campaign carried out using spyware allegedly made by Paragon Solutions, as WhatsApp claimed on Friday.

Italy's government said on Wednesday that seven mobile phone users in the country had been targeted by spyware on Meta Platforms' WhatsApp messaging service, and it called the incident "particularly serious".

According to the chat service, an Israeli company called Paragon Solutions used group chats and PDFs to target the individuals.

WhatsApp, used by millions of people around the world, says its users were hacked by the Paragon Solutions spyware company. The World's Host Marco Werman speaks with John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab,

An official for WhatsApp told Reuters around 90 users were hacked and declined to say who was specifically targeted. The people who were hacked were sent electronic documents that