RICHMOND, Va.—Nine activists from Bahrain had their iPhones hacked by advanced spyware made by the Israeli company NSO Group, the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire firm, a cybersecurity watchdog reported on Tuesday. Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said NSO Group’s Pegasus malware successfully hacked the phones between June 2020 and February 2021. Those reportedly hacked included members of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and two political dissidents living in exile. At least one of the activists lived in London when the hacking occurred, Citizen Lab said. Citizen Lab said it has “high confidence” that at least four of the activists were hacked by the Bahraini government, which has a history of using commercially available spyware. One of the activists targeted is Moosa Mohammed, who said he was previously a victim of spyware, in 2012. “When I fled torture and persecution in Bahrain, I thought I would find safety …