«There are records that demonstrate that the terminal executed various malicious processes recognized by the programmer. Pegasus». This is what the Mossos d’Esquadra report says, to which ABC has had access, which certifies that one of the mobile phones of the head of Puigdemont’s office, Josep Lluís Alay, was infected with the spyware. According to the Catalan Police, at least since October 2019, when Fernando Grande-Marlaska was already in charge of the Ministry of the Interior.
The computer forensic laboratory has detected the trace of Israeli ‘software’ on the aforementioned terminal, an iPhone 8, until June 2020. Among these, indicators of compromise with possible source connections that helped infect the phone, the researchers point out in their conclusions. A document requested by the Court of Instruction 4 of Barcelona, after the complaint that Alay himself formalized for espionage due to revelation of secrets.
Thus, throughout 24 pages, the Mossos recall that Pegasus is a spy program owned by the company NSO, used “exclusively” by government agencies to fight organized crime and terrorism, which can be installed in a “stealth” manner. on a smartphone. That is, without authorization from the owner, taking advantage of vulnerabilities not known to the manufacturers.
The ‘software’ allows access to all user data and communications, including their camera, microphone or location. Detecting the infection is “difficult”, the experts say, because Pegasus was designed to have no persistence in the end, that is, it is not saved in the phone’s memory to avoid being detected.
It was Citizen Lab, a laboratory attached to the University of Toronto, the first that, in 2016, had access to an infected mobile phone, which made it possible to monitor the behavior of the terminal. From this analysis, vulnerabilities and files linked to Pegasus were discovered that allowed establishing Valid compromise indicators for analyzing other phones that could have been infected.
Based on these indicators, now the Catalan Police experts, after analyzing two Alay cell phones, certify that one of them has indeed been infected with Pegasus. Among these, through domains related to the spy program, which the affected person received through a dozen messages that, in theory, linked news from some digital newspapers, agencies or access to notifications from the General Treasury of Social Security. .
From the analysis of the terminal, they conclude that at least 3.2 GB of information was extracted from Alay’s mobilealthough they have not been able to determine their fate. It was after formalizing this complaint that the Investigating Court 4 ordered the recovery of the phones of the head of Puigdemont’s office, which had remained in the hands of the Civil Guard since October 2020, when he was arrested as part of the Voloh operation. in charge of Instruction 1, whose owner is Joaquín Aguirre.
It is worth remembering that, a few weeks ago, the Mossos also endorsed the spying with Pegasus on Jordi Sànchez, who was president of the ANC and former leader of Junts. And, some time ago, they did the same with Pere Aragonès, during the period he served as Quim Torra’s vice president. In this last case, a court in Barcelona holds the former director of the CNI Paz Esteban charged with monitoring the terminal.
After Citizen Lab published a report in April 2022 denouncing the espionage of 65 pro-independence politicians and activists, the CNI admitted monitoring 18 of them, including Aragonès, Sànchez and Alay. In all cases, as Esteban pointed out during his appearance behind closed doors to the Official Secrets commission, with judicial authorization.
#Mossos #certify #espionage #Pegasus #Alay #Puigdemonts #office
