Pearl 2 Pegasus is a joint report between Red Line for Gulf and The Citizen Lab by Bill Marczak, Ali Abdulemam, John Scott-Railton, Bahr Abdul-Razzak, Siena Anstis, Noura Al-Jizawi, and Ron Deibert.
Key Findings
Citizen Lab’s forensic analysis confirms that phones belonging to three individuals in Bahrain were hacked in 2021 with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. Two have consented to be named.
One target, Mohammed Al-Tajer, is a prominent Bahraini lawyer, who was previously hacked with FinFisher spyware and blackmailed in an operation linked to the Bahraini government in 2011.
Al-Tajer’s phone was hacked on September 2, 2021, approximately one week after a previous report by Red Line for Gulf and the Citizen Lab on the hacking of Bahraini activists’ devices.
Dr. Sharifa Siwar is an exiled Bahraini psychiatrist who accused a member of the Bahrain Royal Family of being involved in a scheme to distribute medications for recreational use to schoolchildren.
Journalist A, hacked in September 2021, received a notification from Apple in November 2021 that their device was targeted by government attackers, as did Al-Tajer.
