Nascondino: Cy4Gate S.p.A.
VAT number: 13129151000Products: Epeius, Hydra, Gens.AI
Parent Company: Resi Group S.p.A. (01353620592)
Capabilities: Spyware, IP Network Surveillance, Online Disinformation
Cy4Gate is an Italian conglomerate of multiple spyware and surveillance companies (RCS, Tykelab).
Founded in 2014, Cy4Gate flagship products are Epeius, Hydra and Gens.AI.[1]
Epeius is a spyware that can be installed on mobile devices to monitor a victim’s activity, to extract their data, chats, photos, locations, email, etc.[2]
Hydra allows monitoring a victim’s network activity, detecting which applications are used, which websites are visited, if VPNs or Tor are in use, etc.
Gen.AI is a tool that allows creating fake social personas for law enforcement agents to use on social networks to interact with victims to deploy the Epeius spyware or conduct disinformation campaigns.
In 2020, Privacy International documented Cy4Gate’s “Human Interaction Tracking System (HITS)” which tracks citizens via GPS, cell tower, and Bluetooth data. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cy4Gate offered HITS at no cost to Italian authorities.[3]
In 2021, Citizen Lab and Vice’s Motherboard found links between a fake version of WhatsApp and Cy4Gate, specifically its Epeius tool.[4]
The spyware was made of multiple stages. The first stage collected basic identifying information about the device (namely the IMEI code and the phone number).
This instance of Epeius was rented by Cy4Gate to SIO. The Italian prosecutor’s office of Naples later suspended the wiretapping authorization given to SIO.
In 2022, Cy4Gate acquired the Aurora Group/RCS Lab for an enterprise value of 90 million EUR.[5]
In 2024, Google’s Threat Analysis Group attributed several Android zero-days (CVE-2023-4211, CVE-2023-33106, CVE-2023-33107) to Cy4Gate’s Epeius spyware.[6]
That same year, Meta’s Q4 2023 Adversarial Threat Report detailed actions against Cy4Gate and RCS Labs for using GAN-generated fake accounts on Facebook/Instagram for reconnaissance, phishing, and spyware delivery.[7][8]
In 2025, an investigation revealed that Cy4Gate received at least 3.8 million EUR in EU funding (2020-2024), including from the European Defence Fund, prompting 39 MEPs to demand explanations from the European Commission.[9][10][11]
This company is also listed on Surveillance Watch.