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Pegasus spyware has been found on the phones of at least five French ministers, multiple sources told news outlets. The company behind the tech, the Israel-based NSO Group, denies it was used to target French officials, however.
The revelation was first made by French investigative website Mediapart, with the report further corroborated by the AFP news agency on Friday.
Traces of Pegasus spyware have been found on the mobile phones of at least five current cabinet ministers, Mediapart said, citing a confidential intelligence report and numerous anonymous sources. The alleged activity of the spyware was traced back to 2019 and, to a lesser extent, 2020.
The five affected officials include Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie, Housing Minister Emmanuelle Wargon, Overseas Territories Minister Sébastien Lecornu, and Territorial Cohesion Minister Jacqueline Gourault, according to Mediapart. ...
Shortly after the report was published, the developer of Pegasus spyware, the Israel-based NSO Group, rejected the allegations, reiterating its stance that the program had never been used to target French officials. ...
First discovered back in 2016, the spyware hit the headlines earlier this year, after a consortium of 17 media organizations reported that it had been used to target more than 50,000 high-profile people all over the globe. The software, sold by NSO only to government entities in order to purportedly investigate serious crime, was allegedly used to monitor the online activities of politicians, government officials, and journalists from a number of countries.