# Ahmed Mansoor targeted with Pegasus iPhone exploits traced to likely UAE operator

Date: 2016

On 10 and 11 August 2016, UAE human-rights defender Ahmed Mansoor received SMS messages on his iPhone promising “new secrets” about detainees tortured in UAE prisons if he clicked a link. Instead he forwarded them to Citizen Lab, which, working with Lookout Security, found that the links led to a chain of iPhone zero-day exploits that would have installed NSO Group’s government-exclusive Pegasus spyware. Citizen Lab said the high cost of the exploits, the use of Pegasus and prior known targeting of Mansoor by the UAE government pointed to the UAE government as the likely operator; it was the third commercial spyware suite used against him, after FinFisher in 2011 and Hacking Team in 2012. In January 2019, Reuters reported that a UAE offensive cyber unit known as Project Raven, made up of Emirati security officials and former U.S. intelligence operatives working as contractors for UAE intelligence services, used a purchased tool called Karma to hack the iPhones of hundreds of activists, political figures and foreign leaders beginning in 2016. A spokeswoman for the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment to Reuters. In 2021, the Pegasus Project named the UAE among 11 countries with potential NSO clients. Mansoor was arrested in March 2017 and sentenced in May 2018 to 10 years in prison over his social-media posts. [Mohamed bin Zayed](/people/mohamed-bin-zayed-al-nahyan) was Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces throughout this period; no cited source shows that he personally ordered the targeting of Mansoor.

## People

- Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan: https://factrail.ai/people/mohamed-bin-zayed-al-nahyan

## Drivers

- State Repression: https://factrail.ai/drivers/state-repression
- Digital-Surveillance Intensity: https://factrail.ai/drivers/digital-surveillance-intensity

## Sources

- https://citizenlab.ca/research/million-dollar-dissident-iphone-zero-day-nso-group-uae/
- https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/30/uae-used-cyber-super-weapon-to-spy-on-iphones-of-foes.html
- https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/07/the-pegasus-project-2/
- https://www.mofa.gov.ae/en/mediahub/news/2020/1/3/03-01-2020-uae-discussion
- https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/05/uae-activist-ahmed-mansoor-sentenced-to-10-years-in-prison-for-social-media-posts/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-ahmed-mansoor-pegasus-targeting-2016