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France Investigates Report Morocco Had Macron's Phone Hacked (bloomberg.com) 39

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
France is looking into a news report that the phone of French President Emmanuel Macron may have been tapped on behalf of Morocco using spyware developed by Israel's NSO group, his office said Tuesday. From a report: A Moroccan surveillance agency attempted to access his private conversations in 2019, according to an international investigation cited by France Info, which took part in the project. Other heads of state and government members -- including about 15 French ministers or ex-ministers were also targeted -- the probe showed. Morocco has denied responsibility, France Info reported. The Pegasus spyware was used in attempted and successful hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, activists and business executives worldwide, according to the investigation led by the Paris-based not-for-profit Forbidden Stories, which relied on evidence extracted from the phones through forensic analysis by Amnesty International.
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France Investigates Report Morocco Had Macron's Phone Hacked More

France Investigates Report Morocco Had Macron's Phone Hacked

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  • I can't help but wonder if any of the nation-states will be able to dismantle the NSO group. There sure are a lot of powerful actors on the scene.

    • " I can't help but wonder if any of the nation-states will be able to dismantle the NSO group. "

      Publicly they will absolutely denounce the entire idea and drag them under the bus to make everyone feel good.
      Privately, it will be business as usual as they fill out their purchase orders for access to the newest versions of the software.

      • Re:Popcorn time (Score:5, Insightful)

        by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @02:04PM (#61601877)
        NSO group is Israeli. Israel requires security to maintain its status-quo as an occupier / apartheid state (whether you think its justified or not, I'm just calling a spade a spade) as well as fend of its regional adversaries like Iran. Israel wont give up any of its security apparatus, much of which comes from the private sector so easily. NSO group may not exist after this, but will be reformed as a separate private entity or the tech will be absorbed into the Mossad and Israel will be the contractor for the software in the future.
          • I disagree. Besides. Do you really want to try to justify why a country with a 6 million should exist if the only way for it to exist is to oppress 6 million other people? If Israel needs to oppress others for it to exist, its existence would thereby be unjustifiable and the arrangement would need to be altered completely. I think Israel at this point would do itself better to either absorb the Palestinian populations as full citizens, ending its apartheid state, or relinquishing sovereignty over the territ

            • You may disagree anything and all you like. However:

              It is 9+ million people [wikipedia.org]. Of them, 21% are Israeli Arabs, who enjoy full rights and access to social services and benefits provided by the State of Israel to its citizens. Another important fact is that more than 70% of the Israeli Jews living today were born in Israel.

              Yes, the Jews are occupiers, but that occupation happened literally thousands of years ago and no nation existing today claims prior ownership. (No, please do not ascribe everything to the

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              The only reason Israel has to oppress anyone to exist is to avoid being oppressed. Daily terrorist attacks aren't much fun.

              The Palestinians aren't saints, they're not like Ghandi. They're full of terrorists and their people largely support those terrorists, hence why they voted for Hamas, over Fatah.

              You don't even understand the problem in the slightest; the point is the Palestinians don't WANT to be absorbed, they want to take over and kill off the jews, that's their stated aim. If you think it's as simple

        • Their CEO lives in a 12,000 square-foot mansion in Virginia.

    • I can't help but wonder if any of the nation-states will be able to dismantle the NSO group.

      If your house is repeatedly burgled, the solution is a better lock, not to ban lock picking.

      NSO isn't the problem. Weak security is the problem.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vyvepe ( 809573 )
        A better door lock is cheap. More secure software is expensive. Most phone users do not care about security. Secure software is not commercially viable. The phone software security will not improve ... definitely not for the masses which are eager to join social networks to share as much info about their lives as they can manage.
        Governments like spyware. Companies providing vulnerabilities and spyware will likely continue to prosper.

        • A better door lock is cheap. More secure software is expensive.

          A billion better door locks cost more than a billion copies of more secure software. I agree with the rest of your post, though.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luthair ( 847766 )
        No what you're asking for is perfection in software and hardware.

        • That kinda depends on Google. Will we still be debating in 3 years time running Android on Linux on Snapdragon?

          Or will their roadmap for Android 13 detail migration to Fuchsia on their own custom Whitechapel silicon?

          Not necessarily a panacea but they do control their own destiny.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )
      We can make it very hard for them to exist by blacklisting them which could prevent international financial institutions from doing business with them, similarly we could target the executives of the company much like we have done with Russia.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Luthair ( 847766 )
        Thinking further, France and other countries who host victims of the company could probably charge them under hacking laws and issue international arrest warrants. Israel may not have an extradition treaty with these countries (?) but it would largely prevent employees from travelling outside of Israel making working there a lot less interesting/beneficial.
        • And it would take the Israeli government about 20 seconds to come up with a solution: give everybody working there new passports with fake names. At least the people who are visible outwards, like CEO and so on.
  • It will be disclosed that the French Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) used NSO to hack the phone of Morocco's King Mohammed VI.

  • Most countries are doing it but pretend that they are not. If they are caught they will lie and say that they do not. If someone is caught spying on them the act like a kid who has had his sweet bag stolen.

  • Heads of State an not trust their phones (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @03:11PM (#61602075) Homepage

    Frankly, I would assume that any cellphone owned by a P. (President, Premier, Prime Minister, etc.) is hacked.

    If I were them, I would not own one. If you have an actual, human aid, they can do everything a smart phone can do, including entertain them.

    Not like they are dating, have trouble finding their friends.

    Twitter, etc. can be printed out and given to them by their aids. Even videos can be checked for viruses and downloaded to a PC for them to view.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cciRRus ( 889392 )
      In addition to leaders, their aids are also targeted.

    • Maybe they can use a brick phone for communication.

      Since modern brick phones don't have much capabillities compared to smartphones, presumably there will be less of an exploit surface. I have seen brickphones with the standard number keypad and actually running some weird OS(maybe android derived) with whatsapp build in and very few other capabilities that an old brick phone didnt have.

      Of course it will be harder to send msgs using only the keypad, and the much smaller screens will be a pain.

      The other optio

  • I don't know why France is complaining. The Pegasus software is only sold to governments on the condition that they will only be surveilling targets of "national security interest". The political plans and strategies of the president of France is unquestionably of national security interest to Morocco.

    That's what is so convenient about "national security interest". It can be anything that helps to keep the current administration running, especially if the current administration gets to define what what will

  • Just claim you did it for the USA.

    Merkel did prove that that's apparently perfectly fine for EU vassal states.

    Saying you, Morocco, did it, is just a rookie mistake. ;)

  • It seems surprising that the french president would discuss state affairs on an ordinary smart phone.

    On the other hand, Macron has shown a very personal relation to power. It seems reasonable to assume french intelligence services advised him against the practice, but that he decided on its own to go ahead as is.

  • Though one should doubt that any world leader is permitted to use a phone that hasn't been secured to the n'th degree.

    Perhaps more problematic are the phones used by retired world leaders since they continue to be active participants in world affairs as defacto consultants (with some exceptions)

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