In October 2023, following the official visit of U.S. president Joe Biden in September for a cooperation agreement with Vietnam, the Vietnamese government was linked to hacking attempts on U.S. and other foreign officials, intellectuals from think tanks, and journalists. The spyware that journalists allegedly used in this incident is Predator, a product of Cytrox, a North Macedon i a - b a s e d fi r m o w n e d b y I n t e l l e x a , a European consortium435. Among the targets were the House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairperson, Michael McCaul; Chris Murphy, a U.S. senator and a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and chair of its subcommittee 435 436 437 on the Middle East; journalists from CNN; Asia experts at Washington think tanks; two Asia-based journalists; the president of the European parliament, Rober ta Metsola; former President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-Wen; the German ambassador to the United States, Emily Haber; and French member of the European Parliament, Pierre Karleskind. The attack was implemented through posts on X (formerly Twitter), which contained links injecting spyware into their phones. The infiltration is reported to be unsuccessful 436 . The Vietnamese government repor tedly deployed the spyware in order to better understand the U.S. government’s views on China and issues in Asia437. Lyngaas, Sean. “Vietnam-aligned Hackers Attempted to Hack US Lawmakers and Journalists.” CNN, 9 Oct. 2023, edition.cnn.com/2023/10/09/politics/vietnam-hackers-us-lawmakers-journalists/index.html. Menn, Joseph, et al. “Vietnam Tried to Hack U.S. Officials, CNN With Posts on X, Probe Finds.” Washington Post, 10 Oct. 2023, www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/10/09/vietnam-predator-hack-investigation. Ibid. 110