Prominent Egyptian opposition activist's phone hacked, says watchdog

The phone of a prominent Egyptian opposition figure in exile was hacked by two separate pieces of government-operated spyware, Reuters reported the internet security watchdog Citizen Lab saying on Thursday.

It said the surveillance programmes used against Ayman Nour, a liberal politician and critic of Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, were made by the Israeli NSO Group and a previously obscure Europe-based firm called Cytrox.

Nour’s Ghad al-Thawra Party blamed Egypt and another unidentified Arab country for hacking his phone. Citizen Lab stopped short of blaming anyone for the spying, saying only that Egypt was a likely Cytrox customer.

A separate report by Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc, also due to be published on Thursday, identified Cytrox as a spyware vendor.

Facebook’s report did not address Nour’s case but, like Citizen Lab, it said Cytrox had Egyptian clients.

Egyptian authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

READ: US lawmakers call for sanctions against spyware firms including Israel’s NSO Group