About 36 journalists from the Al Jazeera Media Network were hacked using advanced spyware from Israel, and it is believed that the attacks were probably linked to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to a report published yesterday by the Univerity of Toronto's Citizen Lab's researchers, which is a cybersecurity watchdog, as reported by Al Jazeera.

The report called the "The Great iPwnJournalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit" was released on 20 December 2020, and has detailed how the Israeli Company NSO Group's Pegasus spyware was used to infect and attack mobile phones of 36 Al Jazeera journalists, anchors, executives and producers.

According to the Citizen Lab, the attacks were almost certainly pulled off by the Saudi and UAE governments.

Tamer Almisshal, an Al Jazeera Arabic investigative journalist, who has reported on many politically sensitive topics related to the Middle East, felt his mobile phone may be hacked, so in January 2020, he agreed to have a VPN installed on his phone so Citizen Lab researchers could monitor all the metadata that was linked to his internet traffic. The Great iPwnJournalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit)

When Almisshal started receiving death threats, on his phone, Citizen Lab stepped in and after analysing the data on his phone discovered that his mobile phone had been hacked by the Pegasus spyware using the 'zero-click technique. According to Almisshal:

"This hacking was done by a so-called zero-click technique where they can access cameras and track the device. They also found that operators in the UAE and Saudi Arabia were behind this hacking."

“We tracked the spyware for six months and found that at least 36 Al Jazeera staffers were hacked. They have used some of the content they stole from the phones to blackmail journalists, by posting private photos on the internet” (Al Jazeera)

With reference to the hacking attack on Al Jazeera's journalists mobile phones, Almisshal added that it was a

"crime against journalism. Based on this spyware, journalists have been arrested, disappeared, or even killed. Khashoggi is just one example”. (Al Jazeera)

Sources: Al Jazeera; The Great iPwnJournalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit
Cover image source: Al Jazeera

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