{
  "id": 5530562,
  "title": "Serbians targeted with spyware in country’s ‘largest documented wave of surveillance’",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/03/serbians-targeted-with-spyware-in-countrys-largest-documented-wave-of",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-03T22:10:18.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Guardian Technology",
    "slug": "guardian-technology",
    "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/03/serbians-targeted-with-advanced-spyware"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A digital rights group has revealed that at least 14 individuals from Serbia's civil society were targeted with sophisticated spyware earlier this year. This marks what the Share Foundation calls the \"largest documented wave of surveillance\" in Serbia to date. At least one of the victims was using the NSO Group's Pegasus spyware, which grants attackers complete access to the infected device.\n\nThe victims included members of a student movement that has been actively opposing the government of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić since 2024. The movement originated from nationwide protests following the collapse of a train station during the winter. Critics have accused Vučić, who has been in power for over a decade, of weakening institutions and steering the country closer to Russia.\n\nWhile there is no evidence linking Vučić's government to the Pegasus spyware attacks, other spyware involved in these incidents has been previously traced to Serbian authorities. The timing of the attacks, occurring during Serbia's March local elections, has raised suspicions that they were a test run for upcoming snap elections in October.\n\nAndrijana Ristic, a policy adviser at Share, suggested that the election cycle might have been used as a way for the ruling party to assess the spyware's capabilities and the extent of pressure it could exert on opposition groups. John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, stated that Serbia's peaceful pro-democracy movement is being aggressively targeted with mercenary spyware ahead of key election cycles.\n\nOne of the targeted students, Milica Popović, described the attacks as \"cruel\" but vowed that they would not deter her or the student movement. She emphasized that the attackers' goal of instilling fear and silencing dissent would fail. NSO Group, the company behind Pegasus, has faced scrutiny in the past for supplying spyware to authoritarian regimes targeting journalists, human rights advocates, and dissidents. The company has attempted to distance itself from these practices, but incidents like this continue to raise questions about its efforts to rebrand as an \"ethical spyware company.\"",
  "summary": "Student protesters among those hacked, says digital rights group, though Aleksandar Vučić’s government denies spying At least 14 people from across Serbian civil society were targeted with advanced spyware earlier this year in what the digital rights group Share Foundation said was the largest documented wave of such infection in Serbia to date. The wave of spyware infections was discovered in…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Daily Maverick",
        "title": "More than a dozen Serbians targeted with mercenary spyware, digital rights group says",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/03/more-than-a-dozen-serbians-targeted-with-mercenary-spyware-digital",
        "published": "2026-09-03T03:22:29.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}