OTTAWA—A new report suggests a controversial commercial spyware was used to infect the cellphone of a prominent Saudi political refugee and activist in Quebec shortly before Saudi authorities arrested the man’s brothers and friends back home. The explosive allegation follows an investigation by internet watchdog Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, which has been raising alarms about the spyware known as Pegasus. People pray at an open air makeshift mosque in front of a giant Saudi Flag in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, last year. Saudi Arabia is believed to have used a controversial commercial spyware to monitor the activities of Omar Abdulaziz, a prominent activist in Canada who has become an outspoken critic of the Saudi regime. It was while scanning the entire internet on a regular basis for servers associated with the Pegasus spyware that Citizen Lab noticed the Canadian-based phone checking in with a Saudi server.

Source: thestar October 01, 2018 21:56 UTC