WASHINGTON: Senior government officials in multiple US-allied countries, including Pakistan, were targeted earlier in 2019 with hacking software that used Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp to take over users’ phones.
According to people familiar with the messaging company’s investigation, a significant portion of the known victims is high-profile government and military officials spread across at least 20 countries on five continents. Many of the nations are US allies.
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Some victims are in the United States, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Mexico, Pakistan, and India, confirmed people familiar with the investigation.
Some Indian nationals have gone public with allegations they were among the targets over the past couple of days; they include journalists, academics, lawyers and defenders of India’s Dalit community.
The hacking of a wider group of top government officials’ smartphones than previously reported suggests the WhatsApp cyber intrusion could have broad political and diplomatic consequences.
A London-based human rights lawyer, who was among the targets, sent Reuters photographs showing attempts to break into his phone dating back to 1st April.
While it is not clear who used the software to hack officials’ phones, NSO has said it sells its spyware exclusively to government customers.
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NSO said in a statement that it was not able to disclose who is or is not a client or discuss specific uses of its technology.
Citizen Lab, an independent watchdog group that worked with WhatsApp to identify the hacking targets, said on Tuesday at least 100 of the victims were civil society figures such as journalists and dissidents, not criminals.
John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, said it was not surprising that foreign officials would be targeted as well.
Previously, WhatsApp checked the target list against existing law enforcement requests for information relating to criminal investigations, such as terrorism or child exploitation cases.
But the company found no overlap, said a person familiar with the matter. Governments can submit such requests for information to WhatsApp through an online portal the company maintains.
WhatsApp has said it sent warning notifications to affected users earlier this week.
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