Cairo [Egypt], September 25: An opposition Egyptian presidential candidate was targeted with spyware a number of times in recent months, with Egyptian authorities likely behind the hacking attempts, security researchers say.
Ahmed Altantawy said on Saturday he contacted internet watchdog Citizen Lab after receiving suspicious messages on his smartphone. The former Egyptian lawmaker said he suspected they were malicious and "inextricably linked to my political candidacy and my opposition role in the country against the Sisi regime", referring to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
The hacking attempts sought "not only to surveil but perhaps also to find compromising material that could be used to discredit or defame me", he added.
Researchers at the University of Toronto-based Citizen Lab and Google's Threat Analysis Group found the malware against Altantawy last week, which prompted Apple to implement security updates on Thursday to patch the associated vulnerabilities.
Citizen Lab said in a blog post that attempts beginning in August involved configuring Altantawy's phone's connection to the Vodafone Egypt mobile network to automatically infect it with Predator spyware if he visited websites not using the secure HTTPS protocol. (Agencies)
Source: Qatar Tribune