Cyberwar Escalates Between Morocco and Algeria as Hackers Target Government Sites

Between Morocco and Algeria, it’s now a cyberwar with attacks targeting major institutions. On April 8th,
a cyberattack targeted the website of the Moroccan Ministry of Economic Inclusion, Small Business, Employment and Skills, especially the National Social Security Fund (CNSS). The CNSS files of strategic and well-known entities, as well as the list of Moroccan employees, were revealed on a Telegram channel. In a statement, a group of Algerian hackers calling themselves "Jabaroot" claimed responsibility for hacking the Ministry of Employment and announced they had accessed confidential data concerning about 2 million people and 500,000 companies that leaked on Telegram.

"It’s hell going to the office when you discovered your superior’s salary the night before," jokes Mehdi, 28. Strategic entities of the Moroccan economy have suffered this large-scale cyberattack. These include the Mohammed VI Investment Fund (Morocco’s sovereign fund), Crédit du Maroc bank (former local subsidiary of Crédit Agricole), Israel’s liaison office in Morocco, and King Mohammed VI’s personal holding company, Siger. For the Moroccan government, these were "criminal" leaks. "These cyberattacks occurred on the very day the United States reaffirmed its recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the Sahara," explains the Moroccan government spokesperson.

The hacking is "a response to Moroccan harassment of official Algerian social media pages," the group explained, referring to the blocking of the Algerian Press Agency (APS) account on the X platform. The Algerian hackers also published a map of North Africa including a map of Morocco without its Sahara.

The response from Moroccan hackers was not long in coming. Phantom Atlas, the Moroccan hacker group, launched attacks against several Algerian government sites. "In less than 24 hours, we managed to hack the internal systems of the General Mutual of Posts and Telecommunications (MGPTT), extracting more than 13 GB of confidential data. These include highly sensitive personal data and strategic documents," this group indicated on Telegram.