DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES -- A cybersecurity watchdog says dozens of journalists at Al-Jazeera, the Qatari state-owned media company, have been targeted by advanced spyware.
Citizen Lab said Sunday its previous research helped link the attempt to hack 36 journalists' personal phones to the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The group traced the malware back to the Israel-based NSO Group, which has been widely condemned for selling spyware to repressive governments. Text messages were infecting targeted cellphones without the users needing to take any action, such as clicking on suspicious links.
The co-ordinated attacks on Al-Jazeera occurred weeks before the normalization of ties between Israel and the UAE, the archival to Qatar.
