Qatar-based Al-Jazeera Media Network witnessed series of cyber attacks despite uplifting blockade
Al Jazeera’s websites experienced series of cyber hacking attempts to disrupt its platforms between June 5 and 8, 2021. Hacking attempts aimed at gaining access, disrupting, and controlling some of its news platforms. It did not explain if this was a DDoS attack or something more sophisticated.
The peak of these attacks took place on June 6, prior to the screening of an episode of the documentary strand “Ma Khafia Atham” (“What is Hidden is Greater”) entitled “In the Grip of the Resistance,” anchored by Tamer AlMisshal, a well-known investigative journalist on the Al Jazeera channel.
The show focuses mainly on current events in the Middle East and the Muslim Word. In Decembr2020, researchers of Citizen Lab reported that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates used Israel-based NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to hack 36 personal phones belonging to journalists, producers, anchors and executives at Al-Jazeera.
In July 19, 2020, AlMisshal — who anchors the Al Jazeera program “ما خفي أعظم” (translated as “this is only the tip of the iceberg”) and reports on politically sensitive topics in the Middle East, including UAE, Saudi and Bahraini government involvement in an attempted 1996 coup in Qatar — had been concerned that his phone was hacked.
It was reported that NSO group was behind that because that while reviewing its VPN logs it was seen that his phone visited a website on the Installation Server for NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, which is used in the process of infecting a target with Pegasus.
Previously, Qatar too was found running influential campaigns against its enemies. During the 2020, Qatar came out strongly against the UAE and Israel’s historic normalisation agreement, mediated by the US. Qatar’s pro-government newspaper — Al-Sharq mischaracterised the deal, emphasising upon Palestinian outrage and spreading the UAE criticisms.
Moreover, Qatar also launched campaigns against adversaries on cases involving the International Football Federation Association (FIFA) and the attack of pro-Emirati journalist and lobbyists such as Ghanem Nuseibeh’s Cornerstone Global with the help of Italian consultant-journalist Paolo Fusi.
Since, blockade was over in early this year but still enmity between the nations was not ended yet covertly they were working for running cyber operations against each other.
