The purpose of the attacks, the company said, was to track cell phones belonging to PA officials, access phone cameras and microphones without the owner's knowledge and steal information.

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The hackers used US President Donald Trump's "deal of the century" and the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani to entice the PA officials to click on malicious links and thus infiltrate their cell phones.

Boston-based Cybereason revealed several cyber-warfare operations targeting organizations and individuals in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in a report from its Nocturnus Research Group titled "New Cyber Espionage Campaigns Targeting Palestinians."

Cybereason said it monitored the attacks over a period of months, discovering they were perpetrated in a similar way to previous attacks the Hamas cyber unit committed against Israeli strategic assets. The unit, according to Cybereason, is a politically-motivated cell that has acted against various targets across the Middle East since 2012.

Cybereason was founded by Lior Div (CEO), Yossi Naar (CVO) and Yonatan Shitrit Amit (CTO) in 2012. The company develops systems that gather information from all servers and stations in an organization, analyzing their behavior in real-time.

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The new funds, which double the amount raised to date, will be used to fuel global growth and further innovate its cloud-based endpoint protection platform, Cybereason said.

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The company made headlines in June when it uncovered what it called the largest nation-state cyber-espionage attack on multiple telecom companies.

"The $200 million investment is a big step towards taking Cybereason to IPO," CEO Lior Div told Reuters, saying a two-year timeline was reasonable.

Cybereason said it plans to increase investment in research and development and will also examine acquisition opportunities.

Softbank has invested previously in the company, along with venture capital firm CRV, Spark Capital and Lockheed Martin.

The company did not disclose a valuation for the funding round, but in an interview with Israel's Globes financial newspaper in February, Div said that they turned down an acquisition offer from an international buyer for more than $1 billion.

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