Doha – In a hostile cyber attack on Tuesday, an Algerian hacking group calling themselves “Jabaroot” claimed responsibility for breaching the official website of Morocco’s Ministry of Economic Integration, Small Enterprise, Employment and Skills.
The group claimed in a statement that the attack was “in response to Moroccan harassment of official Algerian social media pages.” Specifically, they cited the blocking of the Algerian Press Service (APS) account on platform X as their pretext for the cyber assault.
The hostile actors published what they described as “important data” on their Telegram channel, including what they claimed were “salary declaration forms” of Moroccan employees.
In addition, the attackers published a provocative map of North Africa that deliberately misrepresented Morocco’s territorial integrity.
Their misleading map portrayed the Western Sahara region as separate from Morocco, while labeling it with the separatist Polisario Front’s self-proclaimed republic and showing northern Morocco under Algerian influence.
Moroccan expert Hassan Kherjouj had issued an early warning about the affected Moroccan ministry’s vulnerability to such an attack.
In a Facebook post dated April 3, Kherjouj detailed specific technical issues related to the website’s WordPress configuration files, particularly concerning the “public_html/wp-includes/class-wpdb.php” file, which manages database interactions.
In his technical analysis, he outlined three potential security scenarios: “1. SQL Injection Attacks, 2. File Modification (Backdoors & Malware), 3. Remote Code Execution.” He cautioned that “the mere knowledge of the database file name is a serious issue in itself.”
Algerian media outlets claimed that their hackers “managed to publish millions of data points primarily related to Moroccan citizens’ names and salaries,” including CNSS salary declaration certificates.
The cyber attack has temporarily disrupted access to the ministry’s digital platform, with Moroccan citizens reporting inability to access the website’s services.
Moroccan hackers have reportedly launched counter-operations “targeting Algerian government websites, as well as websites belonging to the separatist Polisario Front.”
As of press time, the ministry has not issued an official statement regarding the incident or verified the authenticity of the allegedly leaked data. The website remains suspended and inaccessible to users.
Read also: Algerian Hacker Attacks Website of Morocco’s Confederation of Enterprises
