SAUDI ARABIA and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been accused of responsibility for a cyber attack on dozens of journalists at Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera.

The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab said it traced malware that infected the personal phones of 36 journalists, producers, anchors and executives at the company back to the Israel-based NSO Group, which has been condemned for selling spyware to repressive governments.

Citizen Lab tied the attacks “with medium confidence” to the Emirati and Saudi governments, based on their past targeting of dissidents at home and abroad with the same spyware.

The co-ordinated attacks, which Citizen Lab described as the largest-ever concentration of phone hacks targeting a single organisation, took place in July, just weeks before the US government announced the normalisation of ties between Israel and the UAE, which with Saudi Arabia has participated in a blockade of Qatar since 2017 after the rival Gulf kingdom refused a list of demands which included shutting Al Jazeera. 

Normalisation of relations with Israel is likely to mean stronger co-operation between its secret service and that of Saudi allies like the UAE.

Tel Aviv and Riyadh both see opposing Iranian influence in the Middle East as a priority while Qatar maintains friendly relations with Tehran.

Citizen Lab says the malware was infecting targeted mobile phones without their users taking any action in a form of hack called “zero-click vulnerability,” which instructed the phones to upload their content to servers linked to the NSO Group.

NSO Group said it only provides technology to enable governments to “tackle serious organised crime and counter-terrorism” and attacks on journalists would be “product misuse.”