Scandal in Spain: Pedro Sánchez and the Minister of Defense detected by Pegasus software

Pedro Sánchez, President of the Executive of Spain, and Margarita Robles, its Minister of Defense, was detected by the Israeli Pegasus computer programin a scandal that adds to a series of cyberespionage complaints and has now erupted at the highest state level in Madrid.

At a press conference called urgently, on a holiday in the region, the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, said that the cell phones of Sánchez and Margarita Robles were infected last year by this spyware created by the Israeli company NSO, the subject of numerous investigations around the world.

Denounced some events of “massive gravity”, Bolaños assured that “they are not imaginary”, and explained that they were “illicit and external” interventionsalthough it is not specified whether another country or private company is behind it.

“We are absolutely sure that this is an external attack (…) because of Spain, In a democracy like ours, all interventions are done by official bodies and with judicial authorization, “the minister said.

“In this case, neither of the two incidents happened,” he added. “So we are sure, we have no doubt that it is an infection, this is an external intervention “Giit ni Bolaños.

The government filed a complaint Monday with the National Court, which is the jurisdiction that handles cases of national or global importance, such as terrorism, to “know the whole truth,” he said.

Once installed on a device, Pegasus allows you to access messaging, data services or remotely activate a smartphone’s cameras and microphone.

The NSO has always maintained that this program, its export requires the permission of the Israeli authorities, can only be sold in the states and just to help them fight terrorism and crime.

Pegasus and the NSO have, however, been the subject of serious accusations since a media consortium announced last year that this program was used to spy on the phones of hundreds of politicians, journalists, human rights activists or businessman.

According to the NGO Amnesty International, this software may have been used hack up to 50,000 mobile phones in the world.

The Bolaños indicated that they saw “two intrusions” on Sánchez’s cell phone in May 2021 and one on Robles, in June 2021.

In both cases, the interventions made it possible to retrieve “a certain amount of data from both mobile phones,” the minister added, without specifying the amount or providing more details.

According to the newspaper El País, The hackers seized 2.6 gigabytes of data from the government chief’s phone in the first entry and 130 megabytes, megabytes in the second, in addition to nine megabytes from Robles, but the government still does not know what kind of information was stolen and its sensitivity.

In both cases it is their official telephone numbers, provided by the Stateand not the private ones.

These latest revelations come amid political turmoil in Spain, where the central government of socialist Sánchez has been in intense tension for days over Catalan separatists, accusing the National Intelligence Center (CNI) of spying on them.

The case exploded on April 18, when the Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity project of the University of Toronto, published a report identifying more than 60 people from the pro-independence orbit (mostly Catalan) who would have their attacked or infected mobile phones between 2017 and 2020 using Israeli spy software Pegasus.

In the face of these accusations, Sánchez, without saying whether or not there was spying by the State secret services, announced last week the opening of an internal investigation into CNI and promised to “provide accounts. “

The executive’s response was considered, however, to be insufficient by the Catalan independentists, who returned on Monday to demand more coercive action.

“When massive espionage was against Catalan institutions and the independence movement, silence and reason. Now, everyone is in a hurry. We have to accept responsibility now. “ repeated the president of the Catalan regional government, Pere Aragonés, on his Twitter account.

With information from the AFP