Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez objected

The phones of senior politicians were hacked in May and June of last year, it was announced at a press conference. This is the Pegasus spyware, which has been observed in similar cases before and which, as far as is known, can only be accessed by government agencies.

The person or people behind the attack were able to find a large amount of data, according to Coordinating Minister Felix Bolanos. The information has been handed over to the Spanish judiciary.

– We have no doubt that this is an illegal and unauthorized intervention, according to him, and it is stated that it is coming from an external party, that is, abroad.

It’s not an assumption, it’s facts of enormous weight.

Spanish government wanted Previous explanations for how dozens of people linked to Catalan separatist movements were affected by the same spyware between 2017 and 2020.

Many politicians and other notable people have been influenced by Pegasus in recent years. It has been used by both governments and police forces in various countries. The program was developed by the Israeli company NSO Group and can be secretly installed on people’s mobile phones, after which it begins collecting information and eavesdropping on the microphone and camera.

In July last year it was reported Nearly 50,000 phone numbers of activists, journalists and politicians around the world may have been monitored using Pegasus. Among those said to have been exposed, according to media reports, are three presidents, ten prime ministers and one king.

NSO claims that the company sells only to authorized customers and that those in turn pledge to use Pegasus only to combat terrorism or serious crime. Among these approved clients, however, have for some time been authoritarian countries such as Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan and Morocco.

Even within the European Union, governments in some countries, such as Poland, have been accused of using the software to eavesdrop on opposition politicians.