The Arabic-language al-Ahad al-Jadid reported on its twitter account that it has gained access to secret documents which reveal a big deal between Saudi Arabia and Djibouti.
The deal includes setting up a center for monitoring and spying on the opposition forces and conducting espionage and hacking operations against the neighboring states, including Qatar, Kuwait and Oman, it added.
The report said that the deal is worth $2bln.
A report by a Canadian academic lab had found in October that the Saudi government used Israeli-made Pegasus spyware to snoop on the phone of a prominent Saudi dissident living in Canada.
Pegasus is a spyware produced byย the Herzliya-based NSO Group, an Israeli intelligence firm. Pegasus turns phones intoย listening devices and works byย infecting “targets using Androids and iPhones byย sending them specially crafted exploit links”, the University ofย Toronto-based Citizen Lab, which produced the report, explained.
“Once a phone is infected, the customer has full access toย a victim’s personal files, such asย chats, emails, and photos. They can even surreptitiously use the phone’s microphones and cameras toย view and eavesdrop onย their targets,” it noted.
“We have high confidence that the cellphone ofย Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi activist and Canadian permanent resident, was targeted and infected withย NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware,” Citizen Lab wrote inย theย report, released.
“Abdulaziz has been outspoken onย an ongoing diplomatic feud overย human rights issues betweenย Canada and Saudi Arabia. The targeting occurred while Abdulaziz, who received asylum inย Canada, was attending university inย Quebec,” the report read.
Aย reportย previously published byย the lab last September found that atย least 36 governments use NSO Group’s products, likely including the Saudi Arabian security services.
