Withthe special services of Morocco could monitor Macron using the Pegasus program, which allows you to remotely collect data from other people’s phones. In addition to the president, the list of possible intelligence targets included 14 members of the French government
Emmanuel Macron
The phone numbers of French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe (he headed the Cabinet of Ministers until July 2, 2020) could be among those tracked by the Moroccan special services using the Pegasus program, which allows turning on the microphone and smartphone camera without notifying the user, Le Monde writes, citing sources.
According to the publication, the list of possible targets of the special services also included the numbers of 14 members of the government. Le Monde notes that, without having the opportunity to study the smartphone of the head of state, it is impossible to say whether it was hacked.
The NSO Group (the developer of Pegasus) claims that Macron was never the target of hacking, but at the same time they say that they “do not have access to their clients ‘data”. A representative of the Elysee Palace told the publication that if the facts stated by the journalists are true, they are very serious, and noted that some French people who have become victims of hacking through Pegasus are already filing complaints to the court.
The fact that the authorities of some countries used the NSO Group software to hack the phones of journalists, politicians and activists around the world was reported yesterday by the non-commercial journalistic organization Forbidden Stories and foreign media that joined the investigation, including The Washington Post, The Guardian, Haaretz and Les Echos. For surveillance, the Pegasus spy program, implemented remotely, was used, the right to use which is granted only to states and state agencies.
According to the investigation, there were 50 thousand numbers in one of the leaked lists of wiretapped phones.In particular, the list included the numbers of more than 1 thousand French citizens. In addition to Morocco, wiretapping was conducted from Mexico, India and Hungary, according to Forbidden Stories.Also among the countries whose governments have authorized the use of Pegasus against the press are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, India, Israel,Saudi Arabia and the IAE. The targets of the hack were journalists of both local publications, as well as international and major national publications, including CNN, the Associated Press, the New York Times and Bloomberg.
The NSO Group called the charges unfounded.They stated that “they will continue to investigate all credible allegations of misuse of the program and will take appropriate actions”. The Hungarian authorities said they were not aware of any alleged data collection.
RBC on YouTube Live broadcasts, videos and recordings of broadcasts on our YouTube channel