Dozens of journalists at Al-Jazeera, the Qatari state-owned media company, have been targeted by advanced spyware in an attack likely linked to the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a cybersecurity watchdog says. Through push notifications alone, the malware instructed the phones to upload their content to servers linked to the NSO Group, Citizen Lab said, turning journalists’ iPhones into powerful surveillance tools without their even having clicked on suspicious links or threatening texts. Citizen Lab, which has been tracking NSO spyware for four years, tied the attacks “with medium confidence” to the UAE and Saudi governments, based on their past targeting of dissidents at home and abroad with the same spyware. AdvertisementPrior to Sunday’s report, NSO’s spyware has repeatedly been found deployed to hack journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders and dissidents. “It’s not only very scary, but it’s the holy grail of phone hacking,” said Bill Marczak, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab.

Source: Los Angeles Times December 21, 2020 11:57 UTC