Category Archives: Saudi Arabia

Zero-click iPhone exploit, NSO Group spyware used to target Mideast journalists, Citizen Lab says

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Hackers suspected to work for the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates breached 36 devices belonging to Al Jazeera journalists in recent months by using a zero-click iPhone exploit and NSO Group spyware, according to new Citizen Lab research published Sunday. The suspected government hackers behind the operations had a particularly pernicious tactic for accessing their targets — an iPhone iMessage that requires zero interaction from the target to work, according to the researchers. Citizen Lab is based at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The hacking operations, which researchers attribute to the governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE with “medium confidence,” could have allowed the operators to record audio, take pictures, track device location and access passwords or stored credentials on compromised phones, the researchers said. Qatar, where Al Jazeera is based, historically has a fraught relationship with […]

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Al Jazeera journalist files lawsuit accusing Saudi, UAE crown princes of hack-and-leak

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An Al Jazeera anchor is alleging the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates helped to coordinate a hack-and-leak operation intended to intimidate and disparage her. In a civil suit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, journalist Ghada Oueiss accuses Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) of coordinating efforts to break into her iPhone and then share private photos on Twitter and various websites. The lawsuit says the operation is connected to larger efforts by rulers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE to stifle reports about the two regimes’ alleged human rights abuses. Oueiss has been critical of both nations’ leaders as part of her work as a principal anchor and presenter for Al Jazeera, a news agency based in the nearby Persian Gulf state of Qatar, which has strained ties […]

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Jean Nouvel plans to build luxury resort into ancient sandstone mountains

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Influential French architect Jean Nouvel has produced several impressive buildings in the Middle East, including the National Museum of Qatar, but his latest project may be his most ambitious to date. Named Sharaan by Jean Nouvel, it consists of a reso… Continue reading Jean Nouvel plans to build luxury resort into ancient sandstone mountains→

US sanctions Russian government institution in connection with Trisis malware

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The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a Russian government research institute on Friday that it said was connected to the strain of destructive malware frequently labeled the most dangerous in the world. Known as Trisis or Triton, the malicious software is designed to target systems used to safely control emergency shutdowns of industrial plants. Last year, security researchers at Dragos determined that the hackers behind the tool had scanned the networks of U.S. electrical utilities, after the malware initially surfaced in 2017 at a Saudi petrochemical plant. The sanctions mark the first time any government has publicly connected Trisis to Russia. “In recent years, the Triton malware has been deployed against U.S. partners in the Middle East, and the hackers behind the malware have been reportedly scanning and probing U.S. facilities,” Treasury said it its sanctions announcement. “The development and deployment of the Triton malware against our partners is particularly troubling given the Russian government’s involvement in malicious […]

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120,000-year-old footprints mark oldest evidence of humans in Arabia

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Archeologists have discovered fossilized human footprints in Saudi Arabia that help fill in the story of the early migration of our species. Dating back 120,000 years, the tracks are the oldest evidence of the presence of modern humans on the Arabian P… Continue reading 120,000-year-old footprints mark oldest evidence of humans in Arabia→

Geneva tool lets you bypass censorship by merely doing nothing

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By Sudais Asif
How to bypass censorship? Researchers from the University of Maryland are claiming to have the ultimate solution after all.
This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Geneva tool lets you bypass censorship by merely doing n… Continue reading Geneva tool lets you bypass censorship by merely doing nothing→

List of 2020 election meddlers includes Cuba, Saudi Arabia and North Korea, US intelligence official says

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Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea are working to influence U.S. elections by running information operations, according to the top counterintelligence official in the Trump administration. All three seek to sow discord as Election Day looms, according to Bill Evanina, the Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He did not specify the nature and duration of the operations. “I believe we’re going to have a lot of things that occur in the next 70 days that are going to impact and influence those issues, from nation-state threat actors, whether it be Iran, China, and obviously Russia. We have other countries getting in the nexus because they think it works,” Evanina said during a U.S. Chamber of Commerce virtual event Wednesday. “They want to be able to provide their optics for discord in the United States … countries like Cuba, and […]

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National Cybersecurity Authority (NCA): What You Need to Know

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In its Vision 2030 development plan, Saudi Arabia included a National Transformation Program whose purpose is to diversify the Kingdom’s income away from the oil industry. One of the core tenets of that program is to enable the growth of the priv… Continue reading National Cybersecurity Authority (NCA): What You Need to Know→

US files superseding indictment against former Twitter employees accused of spying for Saudi Arabia

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U.S. prosecutors have filed a superseding indictment in federal court against two former Twitter employees for allegedly spying on dissidents on behalf of Saudi Arabia. The Department of Justice had alleged last year that a Saudi national with ties to the royal family had recruited two former Twitter employees, Ahmad Abouammo and Ali Alzabarah, to abuse their access to Twitter to collect sensitive information about Saudi dissidents, including location data, email addresses, and phone numbers. The former Twitter employees allegedly targeted a close associate of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in 2018 at the behest of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to the CIA. A grand jury has now charged Abouammo, Alzabarah, and Ahmed Almutairi, their alleged intermediary with the Saudi Kingdom, with acting as agents of a foreign government, wire fraud, and money laundering, among other charges. Abouammo is also accused of falsifying records in an effort to obstruct the investigation. Abouammo previously worked as Twitter’s head of […]

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New VPN flaws highlight proven pathway for hackers into industrial organizations

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Sometime in the second half of 2019, suspected Iranian hackers started burrowing into the network of an unnamed organization in the Middle East. What likely began, according to investigators, as a breach of a virtual private network application led to a compromise of the organization’s administrative network accounts. It culminated in a data-wiping attack on Dec. 29 that hit most of the machines on the organization’s IT network. A forensic report on the attack produced by Saudi cybersecurity officials warns industrial companies to secure VPN connections, which employees use for remote connectivity, lest they become a valuable foothold for hackers in search of sensitive data. Seven months later, with the rise in remote work during the coronavirus pandemic, that advice is even more critical. On Tuesday, researchers from cybersecurity company Claroty drove the point home by publishing data on multiple remote-connectivity products popular in the oil, gas and other industrial […]

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