Memento Labs’ Dante Spyware Exposed: Government Misuse Sparks Fresh Surveillance Scandal

Memento Labs Caught in Spyware Controversy

A new spyware scandal has put Italian surveillance tech company Memento Labs back in the spotlight. According to the CEO of cybersecurity company Kaspersky, Paolo Lezzi, one of the company’s government clients used Dante spyware.

Kaspersky identified Dante as a Windows-based spyware targeting victims in Russia and Belarus, linking the malware back to Memento Labs, a Milan-based company that emerged from the ashes of the notorious Hacking Team.

Government Misuse and Internal Oversight

Lezzi admitted that Kaspersky detected Memento Labs spyware but claimed that it was outdated and “no longer supported ”. According to him, the government client used an “agent” that should have been retired long ago.

“Clearly they used an agent that was already dead,” Lezzi told TechCrunch.

He added that Memento had already warned clients since December 2024 about Kaspersky’s detection of Dante and plans to remind them to stop using its Windows spyware entirely.

Currently, Memento Labs says it is focusing only on mobile surveillance tools and zero-day exploits (security flaws used to deliver spyware).

The Dante Spyware and ForumTroll Campaign

Kaspersky’s report linked Dante spyware to a hacking group known as “ForumTroll.” The attackers allegedly used phishing emails and invitations to Russian political and economic forums to infect targets, including media outlets, universities, and government organizations in Russia.

Although the identity of the government behind the campaign remains unclear, Kaspersky noted that the hackers demonstrated strong Russian language skills, but were not native speakers.

From Hacking Team to Memento Labs: A Troubled Legacy

Memento Labs has a controversial lineage. In 2019, Lezzi paid just one euro to acquire Hacking Team, which was notorious for selling spyware to governments.

Back in 2015, Hacking Team suffered a massive data breach by hacktivist Phineas Fisher, leaking 400GB of internal files. The hack exposed how governments in countries like Ethiopia, Morocco, Mexico, and the UAE had used the spyware to target journalists, critics, and activists.

Though Lezzi vowed to rebuild the company “from scratch,” the discovery of Dante shows that old spyware tactics persist under new names.

What This Means for Cybersecurity

Experts say the incident is a stark reminder that government surveillance software continues to proliferate despite scandals and public outrage.

“It tells us that we need to keep up the fear of consequences,” said John Scott-Railton of the Citizen Lab.

Even after Hacking Team’s spectacular downfall, its technology and influence live on through Memento Labs — showing how difficult it is to truly dismantle the spyware industry.

Final Thoughts

The exposure of Memento Labs’ Dante spyware raises serious questions about transparency, accountability, and the global trade in surveillance tools. While Memento claims to have moved on from desktop malware, the incident proves that legacy spyware continues to haunt the cybersecurity landscape.

Until stricter regulations and oversight are in place, stories like this one will continue to remind us that digital espionage is far from dead.