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A series of abusive text messages sent to an Al Jazeera investigative program were the first crumbs that ultimately led to the discovery of an unprecedented hacking operation against dozens of staff at the Qatar-based media network , according to one of the targeted journalists.
Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab claimed on Sunday that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were using spyware sold by a private Israeli intelligence firm to gain access to the phones of at least 36 journalists, producers and executives. Al Jazeera, as well as that of a London-based Journalist with the Al Araby Network.
Traces of the cyber attack were discovered in July when a phone used by an Al Jazeera program, The Tip of the Iceberg, exhibited suspicious network activity that was undetectable to its users.
But unbeknownst to the hackers, Citizen Lab researchers had been monitoring the phone for six months, Tamer Almisshal, the program’s host, told The Guardian on Monday.
Almisshal said he asked Citizen Lab to install a VPN on the phone in January after receiving threatening messages and phone calls from various unknown numbers. “Through different apps, I personally received threats against me – ‘Don’t talk about this story or you’ll be like [the murdered journalist Jamal] Khashoggi ‘- even hacking threats,’ he said.
“We decided to take the threats seriously and installed an observation and tracking application developed by Citizen Lab on the phone.”
The abuse followed a teaser aired by the show promoting an upcoming interview with the French special forces agent who led the operation to take over the Great Mosque of Mecca after it was taken by activists in 1979.
Similar inquiries into matters considered sensitive in the Gulf had led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to demand that Qatar shut down Al Jazeera as part of a wider diplomatic feud between the countries.
No hacks were detected at first, and Almisshal and his team continued their work, being careful not to click on links from unknown sources – which could have been the gateway for the installation of spyware – and keep sensitive content off the phone.
In mid-July, the program aired an episode on BR Shetty, an Indian health-care mogul whose business empire in the United Arab Emirates collapsed earlier this year.
Days later, Almisshal said he received a call from Citizen Lab researchers telling him the phone appeared to have been compromised. “It was a shock,” he said.
“My first question was: ‘How?’ I hadn’t clicked on any [suspicious] connections. They told me it was clickless, meaning you can receive a phone call through an app on your phone, and even if you don’t answer, just reaching for your phone can send you software. spies. “
The phone which appears to have been hacked had been used to contact various parties in the UAE.
Citizen Lab said in its report on the hack that Almisshal’s phone appeared to have been hacked by tools developed by the Israeli group NSO, whose spyware was allegedly used in previous surveillance campaigns in Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates. United.
Citizen Lab identified four spy operators, including one named Monarchy, which he said worked on behalf of Saudi Arabia, and another called Sneaky Kestrel, whom he linked to the United Arab Emirates.
Almisshal’s phone was examined by Citizen Lab researchers and the Al Jazeera IT team, who said they detected the same spyware on the phones of 35 other staff, including producers, journalists. and frames.
Researchers also alleged that the phone of another journalist, Rania Dridi, a London-based presenter for Qatar’s Al Araby network, was hacked at least six times between October 2019 and July 2020.
Almisshal said work on his program will continue but that he and his colleagues are now working with extreme caution. “If you ask me, do I trust my phone now, I would say no,” he said.
NSO said its software was only intended for use by government clients to track down terrorists and criminals.
In the past, its software has been linked to allegations of human rights violations, including the targeting of journalists in Morocco, political dissidents in Rwanda, politicians in Spain, and pro-democracy clergy in Togo.
In a statement about the Al Jazeera hack, NSO Group said it was not aware of the allegations.
“As we have said on several occasions, we do not have access to any information regarding the identity of the people on whom our system is used to carry out surveillance. However, when we receive credible evidence of misuse, combined with basic identifiers of alleged targets and timelines, we take all necessary steps in accordance with our product misuse investigation procedure to investigate allegations, ” NSO Group said.
The Saudi Embassy in London and the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
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