WEST BANK (Dispatches) – A spyware made by the Zionist regime resembling the controversial Pegasus program has been used to target journalists and opposition politicians in at least ten countries around the world, researchers have found.
The little-known Israeli vendor named QuaDream, which markets spyware under the name “Reign”, was established by a former Zionist military official and veterans of the NSO Group, the creator of Pegasus, cybersecurity researchers from Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said.
According to the researchers, QuaDream prefers to keep a low profile and has largely avoided the limelight, in contrast with its competitor, the Zionist regime’s NSO Group.
Unlike the NSO Group, which was blacklisted by the U.S. in 2021 for its ties to illegal surveillance programs, QuaDream has escaped scrutiny, until now.
Reign’s “Premium Collection” capabilities included “real-time call recordings, camera activation - front and back,” and “microphone activation,” according to a company brochure uncovered by Citizen Lab.
QuaDream has sold its products to a range of government clients including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Ghana, and has pitched its services to Indonesia and Morocco.
As part of its strategy to avoid the pitfalls that the NSO Group faced, QuaDream operates with a minimal public presence, meaning no website, no media coverage, and no social media presence.
The attacks launched by QuaDream compromised phones running iOS 14, a state-of-the-art iPhone operating system, between 2020 and 2021.
The attacks were connected to calendar invitations and worked without user interaction, which is considered as a “zero click” attack.
“The firm has common roots with NSO Group, as well as other companies in the Israeli commercial spyware industry, and the Israeli intelligence agencies,” Citizen Lab said.
Last year Reuters reported that NSO and Reign at one point both exploited the same iOS bug to hack into devices.
The occupying regime has faced repeated criticism and diplomatic pressure over spyware and other cyber weapons being developed in the occupied territories.