Phones of Al-Jazeera reporters hacked in attack linked to regimes using Israeli spyware

Doha (QNN)- Dozens of journalists at Al-Jazeera have been targeted by Israeli advanced spyware in an attack likely linked to the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a cybersecurity watchdog reported Sunday.

Researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said it traced malware that infected the personal phones of journalists, producers, anchors and executives at Al-Jazeera back to the Israel-based NSO Group, which has been widely condemned for selling spyware to repressive governments.

iPhones belonging to as many as 36 Al Jazeera journalists were silently infected with malware in Zero-Click attacks, according to research released Sunday.

The malware could record audio from the iPhone microphone, including extracting the audio of encrypted phone calls. It could also take pictures, track device location and access passwords, Citizen Lab said.

The targeted journalists were based in Doha, Qatar. The attacks were first detected on the iPhone of Tamer Almisshal, a Palestinian investigative journalist for Al Jazeera’s Arabic language channel.

Israel’s NSO Group, whose spyware is alleged to have been used in previous surveillance campaigns in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, has said that its software is only meant to be used by government clients to track down terrorists and criminals.

But the new allegation by Citizen Lab marks the latest in a long line of alleged human rights violations involving the company’s software on behalf of its clients, including the alleged targeting of journalists in Morocco, political dissidents from Rwanda, politicians in Spain, and pro-democracy clergy in Togo.

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