Researchers at Citizen Lab and Google uncover attempt to hack opposition Egyptian presidential candidate with spyware, say Egyptian govt likely to blame. It’s why Apple rushed to release a critical iOS update this week. https://apnews.com/article/6e5ab454bff94e1712c94b20b0756f7f
Leading Egyptian opposition politician targeted with spyware, researchers find

Security researchers say a leading Egyptian opposition politician was targeted with Predator spyware after announcing a president bid. They say it's highly likely Egyptian authorities were behind the hacking attempt. Its discovery by researchers at Citizen Lab and Google prompted Apple to rush out operating system updates for iPhones, iPads, Mac computers and Apple Watches to patch the vulnerability. Citizen Lab said in a blog post Friday that attempts beginning in August to hack former lawmaker Ahmed Altantawy involved configuring his connection on the Vodaphone Egypt mobile network to automatically infect his devices if he visited certain websites not using the secure HTTPS protocol.

AP News
The targeted politician, Ahmed Altantawy, told the AP he believed the hacking attempts were “inextricably linked to my political candidacy and my opposition role in the country against the Sisi regime” and sought “not only to surveil, but perhaps also to find compromising material that could be used to discredit or defame me.”