The Facebook company that runs WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit against one of Israel's leading technology companies, accusing it of allowing governments around the world to spy on high-profile 1.400 users, including politicians and diplomats. The Reuters news agency said it had spoken to "people who are familiar" with investigations into the spy scandal, which is said to have been launched "earlier this year".
The interesting thing about the case, says Reuters, is that a "significant" percentage of the hundreds of WhatsApp users that have been targeted by governments around the world are "high profile" officials. Reportedly, victims serve in various government agencies, including the military, of at least 20 countries on five continents. Presumably they include politicians, diplomats, military officers, academics, journalists, lawyers and human rights activists in countries like the United States, India, Mexico, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Pakistan.
WhatsApp claims that espionage activities against these individuals have been enabled by NSO Group, an Israeli software development company specializing in surveillance technologies. The company owned by Facebook claims that NSO Group has specifically developed a hacking platform that allows its users to exploit the flaws on WhatsApp servers in order to gain access to the telephone devices of the persons concerned. At least 1.400 WhatsApp users have had their phones compromised between the April 29 and the 10 in May 2019, says WhatsApp.
NSO Group, whose clientele is made up exclusively of government agencies around the world, denies any wrongdoing. The company says its products are designed to "help governments capture terrorists and criminals," Reuters says. But WhatsApp and Citizen Lab, a research initiative based at the University of Toronto, which collaborated with WhatsApp on the case of the NGO group, say that at least 100 of the 1.400 victims were journalists, political activists and lawyers who defended them. There were no overlaps between the criminal or terrorist investigations in progress and those targeted by the NSO group software, they argue.
The names in the list of espionage victims are not known. But Reuters said that, depending on the high profile of the victims, the spy scandal of the WhatsApp-NSO group could have political and diplomatic consequences worldwide.