Amnesty International and a consortium of media outlets have uncovered a plot by Vietnamese government agents to target several U.S. lawmakers and journalists with spyware through X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The investigation revealed that Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Gary Peters (D-Mich.) were tagged in posts earlier this year containing malicious links to install Predator, a spyware similar to Pegasus.
According to the investigation, McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was allegedly targeted in a reply to a tweet from Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hoeven was targeted in a reply to a post from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen regarding the senator’s visit. Peters, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, were both tagged in a reply to a tweet from an Albanian politician about their visit to the Balkan nation.
The investigation also revealed that CNN, its chief national security analyst Jim Sciutto, and two other reporters based in Taiwan were targeted with malicious links to install the Predator spyware. Most of these posts originated from the account @Joseph_Gordon16, which has since disappeared from the social media platform and frequently included links that imitated news sites.
The Washington Post, a participating outlet in the investigation, confirmed that none of the targeted individuals reported their devices being infected with the spyware. Amnesty International concluded that its findings “suggest that agents of the Vietnamese authorities, or persons acting on their behalf, may be behind the spyware campaign.”
Amnesty International further revealed that Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security had entered into a partnership with a company connected to Predator’s developers through the “Intellexa alliance” and appeared to have received technology shipments through intermediaries. The group highlighted that the combination of technical research and evidence of Intellexa alliance sales to Vietnam indicated that the account operator had close ties to Vietnam and may have been acting on behalf of Vietnamese authorities or interest groups.
When approached for comment, the Vietnamese government declined to respond. The Hill has contacted Vietnam’s Embassy in Washington for a statement.
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