The Egyptian government has allegedly launched a cyber espionage campaign against several human rights activists, AP reported on Tuesday. American-Egyptian writer Mona Eltahawy, a critic of the government’s alleged intrusive surveillance, confirmed that she was one of the targets.
Officials are yet to confirm if the government has been the source of several phishing emails, known as Nile Phish, sent to several public figures and organisations. The email trap sent to Eltahawy, and seen by the news agency, indicates that she was a target of the password-stealing attempt, which was used to target several human rights organisations. On Twitter, Eltahawy said the attempt was “the [Abdel Fattah el] Sisi regime’s latest attempt to intimidate and silence” her and other critics.
The agency said evidence including matching email addresses used to send the trap messages and a common “credential-harvesting website” prove that the culprit is a single source.
Earlier this month, monitoring group CitizenLab had highlighted the “unprecedented crackdown”. While it stopped short of identifying the government as the phishing effort’s sponsor, the group said the scale of the crackdown has made the environment even more difficult for NGOs.
Almost all the targets are part of Case 173, a legal battle started by the Egyptian government against NGOs....
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