How did Morocco end up in the Pegasus affair in Spain?

After accusations by the separatist leaders of spying on their phones by the Spanish government, this same executive announced that he himself had been the victim of spying via the Pegasus software. But for the Spanish press, it is towards Morocco that the accusations point.

Since independence parties denounced the espionage of more than 60 of their members by the Spanish security services, following a publication in The New Yorker, all eyes have been on the reaction of the Spanish government.

The latter has just announced in response that the head of the Spanish executive, Pedro Sanchez and the Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles have been victims of a similar attack, indicating in passing that it is only when the separatists Catalans have launched their accusations that research and analysis work on their phones has been carried out.

They also add that the attack would have occurred in May 2021, leaving it to journalists to make their own conclusions. The latter estimated that this would have happened a month after the reception of the leader of the Polisario in secret by Spain, and therefore in the midst of a diplomatic crisis with Morocco.

Obviously, the accusations therefore naturally turned towards Morocco, which has already been the target of accusations of using the Pegasus spyware by Forbidden Stories, which had received several lists of numbers supposedly spied on by different countries, including Europeans, but which has chosen to highlight only Morocco in its media hype, without however showing evidence.

The Spanish government also skillfully put journalists on the track they wanted to focus on while maintaining a certain mystery. The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, declared that the ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs Arancha Gonzalez Laya (dismissed because of the Brahim Ghali affair) had not been spied on and that there was no report indicating this.

However, he called for “not making unfounded assumptions about the paternity” of the attacks on the mobiles of Spanish officials, and added that there is nothing confirmed by the National Cryptology Center beyond the ‘espionage on Sánchez and Robles’.

The Spanish official also urged caution over the accusations made when asked if the attack could have been ordered by someone from the National Intelligence Center (CNI) without judicial authorization or if Morocco could be behind it. .

At the same time, the Iberian media multiplied the articles accusing Morocco, seeking to link the story to Madrid’s new position on the dispute over the Sahara which was not to the liking of the Spanish press (due to fears that Morocco also claims Sebta and Melilla occupied, editor’s note), attributing to the kingdom a list of 10,000 phones infected by Pegasus including 200 Spanish numbers, citing The Guardian which cites Citizen Lab.

On Tuesday, the spokeswoman for the Spanish executive, Isabel Rodríguez, considered that for the moment the privileged lead was a “security breach”, which suggests that it would be the Spanish intelligence services which would not have done their work correctly.

“Let’s not anticipate the possible consequences of what could happen if we find out who is behind this, if we ever find out,” Isabel Rodríguez said in a press briefing.

And while the accusations against Morocco are multiplying by the Iberian press, it seems that the version put forward by the government, which claims that the attack occurred last year in May, is not plausible.

“It is impossible for months to pass without the user detecting that something strange is happening on his mobile,” said a source within CNI, quoted by the news site La Razon.

It is not possible for a mobile device to be hacked for months without this interference being noticed by the user or the Spanish surveillance and security systems which very often carry out checks and updates of their systems. on the phones of officials and in particular that of the head of government.

The site adds that Pegasus attacks leave traces on phones, such that it is virtually impossible for the user “not to notice that something strange has happened”, citing its source .

In addition, other media claim that the terminals of members of the government undergo protocols, revisions and remote updates from time to time. “Devices are constantly scanned with systems and resources that exist at all times,” El Mundo wrote in an interview.

Finally, members of the CNI reject their responsibility in this affair, considering that for 10 months, the Spanish government had a ready-made and well-developed protocol to defend itself against Pegasus.

The CNI sent a manual to the executive in July 2021 to detect if the phones of senior officials were infected with the software, Iberian media claim, casting doubt on the very idea that the Spanish government is not aware of a possible Pegasus attack all this time and that he did not reveal it, or even use this argument against Morocco in the midst of a diplomatic crisis when he had even sought the support of the European Union to put pressure on Rabat.