No-Click Hacks Target the Savvy

It’s getting easier to sneak spyware onto phones without tricking victims into clicking links

As a journalist working for the Arab news network Alaraby, Rania Dridi is careful to watch out for suspicious emails or texts. She also avoids clicking on links or opening attachments from people she doesn’t know, aware that doing so could allow hackers to gain access to her phone.

But it turns out there were people targeting Dridi who didn’t need her help. More than once, hackers have broken into her phone using a “zero-click” attack, a technique that exploits flaws in mobile operating systems such as Apple Inc.’s iOS or Google’s Android to breach devices without requiring any action from targeted users. Attackers who gain access this way can steal data, listen in on calls, and track people’s locations. There’s practically nothing potential victims can do to prevent such attacks, experts say, aside from not using their devices at all.

Dridi, a Tunisian journalist based in London, suspects she was targeted because of either her reporting on women’s rights in the Arab world or her connection to other journalists who are high-profile critics of Middle Eastern governments. She says it was devastating to find out about the attacks, which made her feel like hostile intruders had sneaked into her private life. “They ruined my life,” she says. “I tried to just go back to normal. But after that I suffered from depression, and I didn’t find any support.”