“Major scandal” … spying on officials and military leaders in 20 countries through “WhatsApp”
An exclusive report published by Reuters, which reveals the spying and penetration of an Israeli company showed the accounts of senior government and military officials in more than 20 countries on five continents of the world, on the application of “WhatsApp”.
The report quoted sources from “WhatsApp”, stressing that the platform is conducting an internal investigation, about the process of “major” penetration, which was exposed to the application and targeted a large number of government officials and military in about 20 countries in the world.
The espionage operation has targeted well-known senior government and military officials around the world.
Wattsab has formally filed a lawsuit against Israeli hacker developer NSO Group, accusing it of making and selling piracy platforms used to infiltrate WhatsApp.
However, the Israeli group commented on the accusation, according to the Hebrew channel “12”, saying that it sells spyware and piracy only and exclusively to government agents and official institutions.
The news agency “Reuters” people familiar with the investigation, saying:
SOME OF THE VICTIMS WERE HACKED INTO GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS FROM THE UNITED STATES, THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, BAHRAIN, MEXICO, PAKISTAN AND INDIA.
NSO Group declined to comment on the reports of the WhatsApp breach, saying its products were used by governments and government institutions only to capture and track terrorists and criminals.
The report said Citizen Lab, an independent research group working for WhatsApp, discovered the infiltration and said there were at least 100 victims, journalists and dissidents, not criminals at all.
“WhatsApp has never been encrypted,” said John Scott Railton, senior researcher at Citizen Lab. “New technologies should fall under the political spying of states.”
Penetration method
For its part, said “Agence France Presse” that the espionage and penetration targeted nearly 1,400 users in the world, in the process of electronic piracy targeting diplomats, political opponents, journalists and government officials. He said the attack had exploited the video network to send malware to mobile phones of a number of users, which would allow government agencies or intelligence agencies to spy on phone owners.
WhatsApp uses about 1.5 billion users per month. The app often boasts that it has a high level of security, including “end-to-end” encrypted messages, which no third party including WhatsApp itself can decrypt.
Indian comment
In the same context, India demanded official clarifications from “WhatsApp” on the espionage scandal, especially after the media accused, the Indian government, using these means to spy on its citizens, according to the agency “AFP”
According to Indian media that the accounts of 24 activists, lawyers, journalists and dissidents were spied and penetrated in India.
Ravi Shankar Prasad✔@rsprasad
Government of India is concerned at the breach of privacy of citizens of India on the messaging platform Whatsapp. We have asked Whatsapp to explain the kind of breach and what it is doing to safeguard the privacy of millions of Indian citizens. 1/4
Indian Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Indian government was asking WhatsApp to clarify the quality of the infiltration and what it would do to protect the privacy of millions of Indian citizens.
The minister denied that the government had used any malware to spy on its citizens through WhatsApp or other applications.
Indian advertising reports said:
WHATSAPP TOLD OPPONENTS, ACTIVISTS AND JOURNALISTS THAT THEIR ACCOUNTS WERE HACKED AND SPIED.
