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The spyware scandal in Europe has just hit the highest charts on the continent.
The Spanish government said on Monday that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had been hacked with Pegasus software, an Israeli-made digital hacking tool to monitor telephone communications. Sanchez, as well as Defense Minister Margarita Robles, fell victim to malware in May and June 2021, in what Madrid called “illegal and external” intrusions into government communications.
This is a stark reminder that even the phones of Europe’s most powerful leaders are not protected from digital espionage.
Sanchez is the first confirmed head of state in Europe and NATO to fall victim to spyware. But evidence of political espionage using spyware has been growing in Europe for months. Last month, researchers found that dozens of political figures in Catalonia had been victims of digital espionage. Senior officials of the European Union and officials of the United Kingdom government may also have been the subject of Pegasus spyware, and the use of Pegasus in Poland and Hungary has also been documented.
The latest twist in the Pegasus saga is stepping up pressure on lawmakers to limit the use of spyware used by government agencies around the world to use phones and eavesdrop on data and communications targets.
“Our democracy and the security of the European Union are at stake. This requires a firm response from the European authorities, “said Saskia Brickmont, a member of the European Parliament’s inquiry committee on the use of Pegasus in Europe. She and other lawmakers called for a “strict ban on illegal spyware”.
But the European Parliament will have a way to go before convincing national governments of the need to fight spyware.
European governments are wary of going into the details of spyware – in part because the use of digital hacking tools such as Pegasus serves security agencies around the world to fight crime and repel threats to national security.
Spanish Prime Minister Felix Bolaño said on Monday that the hacks on Sanchez and Robles’ phones were “illegal and foreign … They are foreign to state agencies and do not have a court permit from any official agency.”
The Spanish government’s decision to declassify intelligence about its leader’s phone is also a change from the way he responded to Pegasus news on Catalan leaders’ phones.
Last month, Madrid denied illegally spying on dozens of Catalan independence leaders – but revealed little or no details about Pegasus’ use of its own intelligence agency, CNI. The Catalan government is adamant that the Spanish government is behind the hacking, demanding an investigation.
On Monday, Catalonia’s regional president, Pere Aragones, accused Madrid of double standards. “When there is mass espionage against Catalan institutions and independence, we get silence and apologies. Today, everything is in a hurry,” he said on Twitter.
“I know what it’s like to feel spied on … But the double standard is obvious,” he added.
Red lines
The confirmed hacking of the prime minister’s phone could be the turning point that activists and experts have been waiting for.
“There is an endemic problem with major political incident authorities who do not fully understand the acute danger posed by this type of political hacking,” said John Scott-Reylton, a leading Pegasus expert at Canada’s Citizen Lab, in an interview last month.
The European Parliament’s Pegasus inquiry will take place in Strasbourg on Wednesday. Lawmakers are seeking to act quickly, hoping to use the avalanche of reported hacks as a way to reach a consensus on stopping spyware in Europe.
However, the European Commission has so far rejected proposals to act, insisting that national capitals should investigate all espionage cases.
Brussels’ top officials have even cast a chivalrous stance on digital espionage, with the bloc’s digital king Margrethe Vestager last month seem to downplay the threat posed by Pegasus and European Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders, denying receiving any information about possible hacking. your device.
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