Posts tagged “New York Times”
New York Times journalist and bureau chief, Ben Hubbard, discusses working with the Citizen Lab and discovering that he had been hacked several times by operators using NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware.
Our forensic analysis of two iPhones belonging to Hubbard found evidence of Pegasus infections in July 2020 and June 2021. Notably, these infections occurred after Hubbard reported in January 2020 that we found that he was targeted in 2018 by the Saudi Arabia-linked Pegasus operator that we call KINGDOM.
New York Times journalist Ben Hubbard was targeted with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware via a June 2018 SMS message promising details about “Ben Hubbard and the story of the Saudi Royal Family.” The SMS contained a hyperlink to a website used by a Pegasus operator that we call KINGDOM. We have linked KINGDOM to Saudi Arabia. In 2018, KINGDOM also targeted Saudi dissidents including Omar Abdulaziz, Ghanem al-Masarir, and Yahya Assiri, as well as a staff member at Amnesty International.
On February 12, 2017 Citizen Lab’s Bitter Sweet report received front page coverage on the New York Times. This research revealed espionage attempts made against public health officials who were opponents of a controversial Mexican soda tax.
