Should we be worried about national security? When he is not himself checking the blocking of pornographic sites that do not verify the age of their users, the resigning minister Jean-Noël Barrot has his personal smartphone hacked. According to information from Mediapart on Thursday, December 5, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs and former Minister of Digital Affairs saw his phone hacked by a still unknown actor.
Jean-Noël Barrot is said to have clicked, on November 25, on a malicious link received via the secure messaging application Signal. The phone was then used to send, without its owner’s knowledge, a message to Bahrain’s foreign minister, proposing a phone call. « Dear Minister, Hope you are doing good. Can we connect on call ? » (“Dear Minister, I hope you are well. Can we call each other? »), we could read in this message sent by a certain Jean Barrot (and not Jean-Noël).
A formula strange enough to push Mr. Barrot’s counterpart to warn the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The matter could have ended there, simply reminding us that no one is safe from a phishing campaign. The messages can be particularly convincing and it can happen to anyone to ignore the rules of use and press on these links too quickly. This is even more true for ministers or diplomatic staff, massively targeted by hackers trying to get their hands on sensitive information.
Victim of phishing on Signal, the minister does not want to part with his phone
The problem in this case, again according to Mediapart, is that the state security services were not really able to analyze the phone properly. The first elements of the investigation made it possible to exclude the use of reputable spyware such as Predator or Pegasus. However, Jean-Noël Barrot initially refused to hand over his personal smartphone to the experts for an in-depth analysis. The minister cited a busy schedule, marked by a series of trips abroad. If the minister’s entourage assures that a certain number of precautions were taken, a complete copy of the contents of the device could have helped to move forward on the type of hacking. A procedure that “Mr Barrot, Secretary of State for Digital from 2022 to 2024, cannot ignore”recalls Le Monde. Even more so when we remember that the minister wanted to fight against phishing campaigns.
How to avoid clicking on a malicious link?
Phishing is a real threat and it can happen to anyone to have their device infected. However, it is possible to reduce the risk by following some good practices. Here are 3 tips to help you avoid clicking on malicious links:
- Beware of unknown senders : Never click on links from senders you don’t know.
- Check the link before clicking : Before clicking on a link, you can try copying and pasting the URL to a URL checking service (VirusTotal, URLVoid, NordVPN Link Checker..). These sites can identify fraudulent links from a regularly updated database. If the URL looks suspicious or isn’t what you expect, don’t click on it.
- Analyze message content : it is possible that the malicious link was transmitted by a contact, a friend or someone in your family. In this case, carefully check the wording of the message and remember this person’s communication habits. In most cases, the hacker will not use the same wording and phishing emails/messages may contain unusual spelling and grammatical errors.
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