WhatsApp sues Israeli firm citing Cyber Attack

On Tuesday, WhatsApp took NSO Group, the Cyber surveillance firm, to federal court. WhatsApp claimed that spy technology from the firm was used in a campaign to infiltrate journalists and human rights activists’ information.

The suit claimed that the spy program intended to piggyback on WhatsApp was used unlawfully against more than one thousand people in 20 countries. The lawsuit did not name the user of NSO Group Technology, but the focus of the attack was determined as Mexico, Bahrain, and UAE.

This lawsuit believed to be a first of its kind. A giant tech company against a digital surveillance company case seems to open the door to check the unregulated adoption of surveillance technologies. Working with a research group affiliated to Toronto University WhatsApp investigations indicate the attacks took place from April to May.

Affected users of the WhatsApp Cyber Attack:

• 100 journalists
• Prominent female leaders
• People who had been targets of assassination attempts that were unsuccessful
• Political Dissidents
• Human Rights Activists and their families

NSO Group, in a statement on Tuesday, said that they serve governments responsibly with their surveillance technology. They disputed the lawsuit by WhatsApp and vouched to fight it vigorously. NSA Group stated that its technology sold to governments was used in law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The technology is used in antiterrorism and crime-fighting efforts.

The Cyber Attack Source

Investigations started when Citizen Lab charged that the technology was used to exploit a security hole on WhatsApp for hacking a London Lawyer’s Phone. In May, WhatsApp patched the hole in a security update. The lawyer being hacked was a representative of plaintiffs who accused NSO Group. The accusation was for provision of tools to hack phones of a dissident in Canada from Saudi Arabia, A citizen of Qatari plus a group of Mexican Activists and Journalists.

The researchers uncovered the spy campaign due to the digital crumbs left behind by NSO technology. The weakness was that whoever used the hacking tools had to make a call to the targeted user, even without picking the call NSO technology embedded to the phone providing access to all phone contents.

Fight to protect privacy

WhatsApp, in its lawsuit, is seeking to block NSO from its service with a permanent injunction. They also called for a ban on cyber weapons similar to NSO’s by lawmakers. They called all parties, tech companies, internet users, and governments to see this as a wake-up call. Will Cathcart’s head of WhatsApp, in an opinion article, highlights the risks of proliferation of tools that enable surveillance into private lives. He lamented these tools were being abused and sold to irresponsible governments and companies.