Saudi Telecom Co (STC) is making progress on its plans to build a mission-critical communications network shared across Saudi Arabia’s intelligence and security services. In its bid for the mobile phone component of the contract, Airbus Secure Land Communications (Airbus).
Now the leading French mission-critical communications provider, Airbus is seeking to earn a share of the Saudi defence ministry’s mission-critical communications contract. But delays on France’s RRF radio network of the future project have the firm treading very cautiously in Riyadh. The terminal stations coast between $500 million and $1 billion.
Sébastien Lecornu is making preparations for a visit to Riyadh, where the French government is deep in discussion about the military component of the Franco-Saudi strategic partnership.
Meanwhile, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has kicked the Saudi spy apparatus into overdrive.
His primary targets include opposition journalists and dissident activists living abroad, and members of the royal family.
Security sources have revealed that a Tel Aviv-based company offered Saudi Arabia a system that hacks mobile phones belonging to some members of the royal family.
Saudi Arabia has bought $300 million worth of spy software from Israel as part of a large scale military deal, the sources added.
The Israeli company, Quadream, had sold cyber-espionage tech to Saudi Arabia, enabling the kingdom to track down political dissidents and members of the royal family and tap their communications.
The company uses a front in Cyprus to sell its Reign spyware, which apparently extracts data from iPhones, remotely controls the camera, and eavesdrops and tracks the locations of the device users without their knowledge.
Such sensitive technology can be exported under the supervision of Israeli military experts.
According to the sources, the Israeli company Quadream, led by a former Israeli military intelligence official, has been selling its services to Saudi Arabia since 2019.
Back in early 2017, news reports revealed that Tel Aviv was directly involved in the sale of sophisticated spyware to Saudi Arabia to help the kingdom purge and assassinate dissidents.
The reports said Israel’s ministry of military affairs had authorized the NSO Group to sell Pegasus, a patch of highly complicated software used for hacking and espionage, to the Saudi kingdom.
The report also stated the sale was carried out through a subsidiary of the NSO in Luxembourg. The firm, officially known as Q Cyber Technologies, enabled Riyadh to target individuals and entities in six Middle Eastern countries.
In 2018, Saudi Arabia and Israel held secret meetings which led to an estimated $250-million deal, including the transfer of Israeli espionage technologies to the kingdom.
Some of the spy systems, which are the most sophisticated systems Israel has ever sold to any Arab country, have already been transferred to Saudi Arabia and put into use after a Saudi technical team received training in operating them, the report added.
The exclusive report also revealed that the two countries exchanged strategic military information in the meetings, which were conducted in Washington and London through a European mediator.
This revelation highlights the Kingdom’s increasingly aggressive spy apparatus under the Saudi Crown Prince — used to heighten attacks on journalists and dissidents living abroad, as evidenced by the recent killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
