KINGDOM
KINGDOM is the name used by Citizen Lab for a Pegasus spyware operator linked to Saudi Arabia. The content describes KINGDOM as a Saudi-linked operator using NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to target dissidents, journalists, and civil society figures, including Ben Hubbard of The New York Times, Saudi dissidents Omar Abdulaziz, Ghanem al-Masarir, and Yahya Assiri, and a staff member at Amnesty International. Citizen Lab reported that KINGDOM was responsible for 2018 targeting of Saudi dissidents abroad and linked infrastructure such as arabnews365[.]com and sunday-deals[.]com to this operator; released KINGDOM-related indicators also included akhbar-arabia[.]com, kingdom-news[.]com, mideast-today[.]com, beststores4u[.]com, and cheapapartmentsaroundme[.]com. The operator used SMS lure messages and Pegasus exploit links, including messages masquerading as Arabnews and DHL notifications, to infect or attempt to infect mobile devices. If successful, Pegasus would allow close monitoring of victims’ communications and access to device contents. Citizen Lab said KINGDOM appeared to monitor targets in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Canada, Egypt, France, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Turkey, and the UK. The content further states that a UK court case credited expert evidence that Ghanem al-Masarir’s iPhones were infected and that Saudi Arabia and/or parties for whom it was vicariously liable were responsible. No additional aliases or sub-groups are directly provided in the content.
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Targeting
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Who they target
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
- Government & Administration
- Non-Governmental Organizations
- Independent Media
Where they target
Geographies tied to known operations.
- 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- 🇨🇦 Canada
Where they're from
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
- SA
Tradecraft
8 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
Associated malware families
1 malware family attributed to this actor across reporting.
Observables
21 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
Recent activity
3 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
A Saudi-linked operator/activity cluster reported by Citizen Lab as conducting targeted surveillance against dissidents abroad using NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, via malicious links/messages leading to iPhone infection.
Saudi Arabia-linked Pegasus operator conducting cross-border surveillance of dissidents, activists, and researchers using NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, including the targeting and likely infection of Omar Abdulaziz in Canada.
Pegasus operator linked to Saudi Arabia that targeted journalist Ben Hubbard, Saudi dissidents, and an Amnesty International staff member using SMS messages with malicious links and Pegasus infrastructure.
The version that knows your environment.
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.