SAUDI ARABIA and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been accused of responsibility for a cyber attack on dozens of journalists at Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera.

The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab said it traced malware that infected the personal phones of 36 journalists, producers, anchors and executives at the company back to the Israel-based NSO Group, which has been condemned for selling spyware to repressive governments.

Citizen Lab tied the attacks “with medium confidence” to the Emirati and Saudi governments, based on their past targeting of dissidents at home and abroad with the same spyware.