Morocco Allegedly Used Pegasus Spyware to Hack Thousands of Algerian Officials

New revelations on the use of the Israeli software Pegasus. According to the investigation conducted by the newspaper Le Monde, Saïd Bouteflika would have been spied on thanks to Pegasus, and that Morocco is the biggest user of the Israeli software. In Algeria, more than 6,000 numbers would have been hacked by the Moroccan client of the Israeli company NSO Group and user of the Pegasus spyware. Phones belonging to political officials, journalists, diplomats, senior civil servants, activists and even military personnel.

For the past few days, Morocco has been accused of targeting 10,000 numbers, mainly Moroccan, Algerian and French, after the publication of the investigation by Forbidden Stories and its partners, including the newspaper Le Monde. Two French media, Mediapart and Le Canard enchaîné, have filed a complaint, and the Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the spying of French journalists. For its part, Morocco has rejected these accusations.