Italian police announced on Tuesday the arrest of a brother and sister in Rome for an alleged years-long cyber-spying operation. The operation targeted the accounts of nearly 18,000 victims, including European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
While police did not name the suspects, local media identified them as Giulio Occhionero, a nuclear engineer, and Francesca Maria Occhionero. Both were known in Rome’s financial community. They are suspected of accessing information concerning national security, illicitly accessing computer systems, and illegally intercepting computer communications. The data was allegedly stored on U.S. servers, which the FBI Cyber Division has seized.
Giulio Occhionero’s lawyer, Stefano Parretta, stated his client denies being involved in espionage and had “servers abroad for work.” However, the Italian news agency ANSA reported that court documents quoted by Bloomberg indicated the alleged hackers acted “with the aim of making a profit for themselves or for others.”
Roberto Di Legami, head of the specialized police cyber unit, told Reuters that Giulio Occhionero used malware to infect thousands of email accounts belonging to bankers, businessmen, and Vatican cardinals to make “investments based on reserved information.” According to law-enforcement officials cited by Politico, Occhionero was a high-ranking member of a masonic lodge, had been shortlisted for Master Mason, and was believed to have planned to sell data on leading figures in the Italian establishment.
The operation was discovered after an infected email was sent to an administrator at ENAV, Italy’s air traffic control company. A report from the company to Italy’s National Center for Cyber Crime led to the investigation and arrests.
