Mobile phones of five French ministers were infected with the Israeli-made Pegasus spyware.
Paris, France:
Sources told AFP on Friday that the mobile phones of at least five French ministers and President Emmanuel Macron’s diplomatic adviser were infected with the Israeli-made Pegasus spyware, confirming a report by MediaPart’s investigative website.
As MediaPart reported on Friday, French security services inspected the phone and found software, believed to have been intrusive, in 2019 and 2020.
Pegasus, made by Israeli firm NSO Group, can switch on a phone’s camera or microphone and harvest its data, and was at the center of a storm in July, when the media listed about 50,000 potential surveillance targets around the world. I was leaked.
Media consortiums behind the revelations, including The Washington Post, The Guardian and France’s Le Monde, reported at the time that Macron’s phone number and that of several French cabinet ministers were on a leaked list of potential targets.
French officials declined to comment on Friday.
MediaPart said the five ministers targeted were Education Minister Jean-Michel Blancar, Regional Cohesion Minister Jacqueline Gourault, Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandi, Housing Minister Emmanuel Vargan and Overseas Sector Minister Sebastien Lecornu.
Two French sources with knowledge of the investigation confirmed the veracity of the report, while asking not to be identified by name as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
“My phone is one of those checked by the National IT Systems Security Agency, but I haven’t heard anything about the investigation yet, so I can’t comment at this stage,” Varagon told the L’Opinion website Friday. told.
One of his aides told AFP that “the minister doesn’t have access to any state secrets, so we can’t really see the point of him spying.”
In July, Le Monde reported that evidence of a hacking attempt had been found on the phone of former environment minister and close Macron aide François de Rougi, with the attempt reportedly taking place in Morocco.
Moroccan intelligence services were also accused of being behind the hacking of journalists in France, but the state government has denied the claims and launched legal action alleging defamation.
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