The Postal and Electronic Communications Control Authority sent short text messages to the customers of mobile phone dealers, inviting them to beware of unknown and suspicious messages, which could lead the owner to the possibility of losing his data and documents, a call that comes at a time when there is frequent talk about targeting Algeria and its citizens by the digital Zionist spyware used by the Moroccan Makhzen regime.

The text messages of the relevant authority, whose journalists were among its recipients, stated: “Beware of suspicious SMS messages. For the safety of your data, do not interact with their contents.” The Regulatory Authority is considered an independent authority for the post and electronic communications, and it enjoys legal personality and financial independence. Its mission is to promote the development of the postal and electronic communications sectors.

The sending of these messages coincided with the leaking of the Israeli newspaper, “Haaretz”, of a list that it said was “confirmed” of all the victims who were targeted by the Zionist-made “Pegasus” spy program, among whom were media professionals, in addition to Arab political and human rights activists.

With regard to these messages and their background, the expert in digitization, Othmane Abdellouche, confirms that some anonymous messages that can reach any phone subscriber, via smart phones in the form of regular or digital messages, may lead to the theft of his information, and it may even reach his or her calls.

The expert in the field of digitization advises against dealing with unidentified texts and ignoring such unidentified texts, because simply opening them may give a foothold to digital spyware aimed at stealing the information of the person targeted with such messages, Abdel-Louche told “Echorouk”.

During the past summer, international newspapers, including the French “Le Monde”, published an investigation by the “Forbidden Stories” and “Amnesty International” human rights organizations, which showed that thousands of Algerian phone numbers had been identified as potential targets for the “Pegasus” digital program, which was developed by the company “Pegasus”, NSO “Israel” in 2019.

Accordingly, the Public Prosecutor at the Court of Sidi M’hamed in Algiers ordered the opening of a preliminary investigation, by “the services of the competent judicial police in combating cyber and information crimes,” about “espionage operations against Algeria’s services and eavesdropping on Algerian citizens and personalities through espionage programs designed for this purpose.” So far, the results of this investigation have not been revealed.

In order to strengthen the protection measures, the digital expert prefers not to do everything through smart phones, which are considered the easiest in terms of penetration, and to prefer a computer over it in very private and sensitive issues, with the aim of lessening the possibilities of penetration by stalkers looking for hacking other people’s data.

Therefore, it is preferable not to use the third and fourth generation in the field of communications in these matters… and to be satisfied with the second generation of communications, because it is considered the least vulnerable to being targeted by stalkers.

In addition, it is preferable to choose some less targeted applications, and warns here against the “Viber” application, which is based in the capital of the Zionist entity, which makes it one way or another in the service of the Hebrew state, unlike the “WhatsApp” application, for example, which is affiliated with Facebook which is now “dead”, which was previously the subject of hacking attempts by the “Pegasus” program.

For the digital expert, the damages that can result from dealing with suspicious messages, the first of which is the possibility of harming the smartphone or, to a lesser degree, the target computer of its owner, but this damage remains less serious with the second damage, which is the theft of data and information, or the transformation of the phone or device to a tool for automatic transmission of victim information.

The expert also warns against offers of some applications that seem at first glance to be useful for a mobile phone or computer, but in fact they naively steal information from the target device with the suspicious message. “Update the Android app every time », he cautionned.

echoroukonline