UAE, Saudi and Qatar trio are found to be engaged in cyber warfare with the help of foreign firms
A new report reveals from New York Times states that UAE established an electronic spy network which included former US National Security Agency (NSA) members to spy on Qatar.
UAE spies hacked devices belonging to Qatar’s royal family and intercepted private communications between then-US First Lady Michelle Obama and Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser.
The report stated that former agents were lured to perform this operation under the guise of patriotism in the sake of quadrupling their salaries.
The report mentioned confessions by David Evenden, a former National Security Agency [NSA] analyst, who was involved in the mission from as far back as 2014, when he started tracking terror cells in the Gulf by monitoring burner phones and messaging apps.
According to the newspaper, the main reason behind the UAE’s attempt was to prove Qatar’s terrorism financing allegations and its funding of the Muslim Brotherhood group.
Few months back, French investigative journal ‘MediaPart’ revealed the UAE had bribed international journalists to launch a continuous media defamation campaign against Qatar.
MediaPart mentioned claims by Spanish journalist Raul Redondo that Qatar funded Hezbollah and paid large sums of money to militants around the world. The well known French outlet corroborated their statements through a detailed succession of sources.
Earlier also UAE hired Baltimore-based firm Cyberpoint, which employed former NSA agents to conduct cyber-espionage. Some of these workers were later hired by the Emirati company DarkMatter, which not only conducted surveillance against local citizens, but also spied on the Yemeni activists and hacked an iPhone used by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. The company also spied on U.S. citizens.
Gamma International a German technology company that sells surveillance software to governments entered the Middle Eastern markets and became famous for its “FinFisher” spyware which was used by UAE to target Ahmed Mansoor, a human right activist.
To retaliate back Qatar took help from Global Risk Advisors (GRA), a US-based consulting firm, to extract information out of Broidy’s personal emails. Few months back, Qatar also signed an agreement with Plantir technologies, a US-based software company, for handling their big data analytics. Bilateral aggrement signed between Qatar and Turkey which prove that Turkey is the best possible ally for Qatar to boost its cyber capabilities in order to defend itself in the region.
Morover, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was involved in hacking Amazon founder Jeff Bezos phone after he received an MP4 video file sent from MBS’s WhatsApp account when the two men exchanged phone numbers during a dinner in Los Angeles in 2018.UN also alleged that Israeli NSO group software was used to hack Bezos phone. Saudi Arabia also used NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to spy on its citizens and to target the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.
Italy firm Hacking Team that sold offensive intrusion and surveillance capabilities to governments, law enforcement agencies and corporations used to spy on pro-democracy activists in UAE, Saudi, Bahrain.
UK defence giant BAE Systems has made large-scale sales across the Middle East of sophisticated surveillance technology, including too many repressive governments and exports to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Morocco and Algeria.
In recent weeks relations between Qatar, the UAE ,Saudi and the other blockading states have calmed after all parties signed the Al Ula Declaration in Saudi Arabia, bringing an end to the three-year long crisis. Though, it’s still hard to say whether their cold warfare will come to an end or not.
