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TD says Minister for Defence fell for phishing scam that led to phone ‘hack’
31st August 2021
A Fine Gael TD has claimed that Minister for Defence Simon Coveney fell victim to a phishing scam which led to his phone being hacked.
Minister Coveney is once again having to address the controversy surrounding Katherine Zappone’s short-lived appointment in the new role of UN Special Envoy for freedom of opinion and expression.
Ms Zappone held a private event at the Merrion Hotel with 50 guests, including Tanaiste Leo Varadkar, six days before the Cabinet decided to move ahead with her appointment.
Minister Coveney admitted this week that he had deleted conversations on his phone with Ms Zappone and the Tanaiste regarding the appointment.
He told the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee that he deleted the texts for storage reasons. However, his spokesperson later clarified that he regularly clears his phone after previously being hacked.
David Stanton, Fine Gael TD for Cork East, twice claimed on RTE Radio 1’s Drivetime that Minister Coveney had been hacked last year.
Speaking to Drivertime’s Sarah McInerney, Mr Stanton said that the Minister’s phone had been hacked: ‘As you said earlier on, Simon’s phone had been hacked last year. He does, as a matter of caution, delete messages for security reasons,’ he said. Mr Stanton then said Minister Coveney was ‘subject to a phishing scam’, which he insisted was known by the media at the time.
Mr Stanton could not explain why there were two reasons Minister Coveney didn’t have the text messages of interest available, but he insisted that the Foreign Affairs Minister does carry ‘a lot of responsibility’.
‘He has to be extremely careful, and as we all know what what is going on with phones at the moment — we’re all getting these weird calls from far away places and we’re all being warned by the powers that be to be careful of how we deal with these [scams].
‘So the Minister of Defence was hacked last year at one stage and he has, as a matter of caution, he deletes or clears his phone on a regular basis.’
Mr Stanton added that he doesn’t know if Minister Coveney deletes all information from his phone.
Earlier on the show Gavin Sheridan, Director of Right to Know, informed the show that the guidance and spirit around the law in relation to the protection of information for Ministers and for civil servants is that they are not to delete information relating to Government or business, and if you do, to make a back-up.
Minister Coveney was subject to a phishing a scam in August 2020 and he had alerted telephone contacts that they may have been contacted by someone claiming to be him seeking money.
The message to his contacts is understood to have warned them of the scam in which the scammer, pretending to be the Minister, is requesting payment on the Telegram Messenger App.
He added that these messages are not from him and he does not use the Telegram Messenger App, then urging his contacts to be aware and delete any conversations purporting to be from him.
Meanwhile Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has released text messages exchanged between him and Minister Coveney in relation to the appointment of Katherine Zappone as UN Special Envoy for freedom of opinion and expression, which she has stepped down from.
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