According to a report published by Mediapart, French security services discovered the spyware while checking the phones, with the intrusions suspected to have occurred in 2019 and 2020.
Israeli-made Pegasus spyware had infected the phones of at least five French ministers and a diplomatic advisor to French President Emmanuel Macron, confirming a report by the Mediapart investigative website.
According to a report published by Mediapart, French security services discovered the software when checking the phones, with the intrusions suspected to have occurred in 2019 and 2020.
Pegasus, developed by the Israeli firm NSO Group, can turn on a phone’s camera or microphone and collect data, and it caused a stir in July when a list of around 50,000 possible monitoring targets was leaked to the media.
One of Macron’s phone numbers, as well as that of several French cabinet members, were on the leaked list of potential targets, according to the media consortium behind the revelations, which included The Washington Post, The Guardian and France’s Le Monde.