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Govt spyware targets phones of Al-Jazeera reporters
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Govt spyware targets phones of Al-Jazeera reporters
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) 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 said Sunday.
Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said it traced malware that infected the personal phones of 36 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.
Most unnerving to the investigators was that iMessages were infecting targeted cellphones without the users taking any action what’s known as a zero-click vulnerability. Through push notifications alone, the malware instructed the phones to upload their content to servers linked to the NSO Group, Citizen Lab
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
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 said Sunday.
Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said it traced malware that infected the personal phones of 36 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.
Most unnerving to the investigators was that iMessages were infecting targeted cellphones without the users taking any action – what’s known as a zero-click vulnerability. 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 even luring users to click on suspicious links o
Report: Government spyware targets phones of Al-Jazeera reporters
Malware on the phones of at least 36 journalists, producers, anchors and executives was traced to a Israel-based group known for selling spyware to repressive governments.
By ISABEL DEBREAssociated Press
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Al-Jazeera staff work at their TV station in Doha, Qatar, in 2017. Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto tied the attacks “with medium confidence” to Emirati and Saudi governments. Malak Harb/Associated Press file
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates 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 reported on Sunday.
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Most unnerving to the investigators was that iMessages were infecting targeted cellphones without the users taking any action what’s known as a zero-click vulnerability. 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 even luring users to click on suspicious links or threatening texts.
The coordinated attacks on Qatari-funded Al-Jazeera, which Citizen Lab described as the largest concentration of phone hacks targeting a single organization, occurred in July, just weeks before the Trump administration announced the normalization of ties between Israel and the UAE, the archival to Qatar.