An official of the popular Metsapp chat service said the Israeli Spyware Company Paragon Solutions had directed dozens of its users, including journalists and civil society members.
The official said on Friday that WhatsApp had sent to Paragon a cessation and withdrawal letter after hack.
In a statement, WhatsApp said the company “will continue to protect people’s ability to communicate privately.”
Paragon declined to comment.
WhatsApp official said Reuters He had detected an effort to hack approximately 90 users of his platform.
The official declined to say who, specifically, was attacked or where they were geographically, saying that only the objectives included an unspecified number of people in civil society and the media.
He said that WhatsApp had interrupted piracy effort and was referring objectives to Canadian Internet Watchdog Group Citizen Lab.
The official refused to discuss how he determined that Paragon was responsible for hack. He said the police and industry partners had been informed, but refused to go into details.
The Federal Office of Research of the United States did not immediately return a message in search of comments.
Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Rilton said that the discovery of Paragon Spyware aimed at WhatsApp users “is a reminder that the mercenary spyware continues to proliferate and, as it does, so we continue to see family patterns of problematic use “.
Spyware merchants, as Paragon, sell high -end surveillance software to government customers and generally present their services as critics to combat crime and protect national security.
But such spy tools have been repeatedly discovered in the phones of journalists, activists, opposition politicians and at least 50 US officials, which raises concerns about the proliferation without technology control.
Paragon, who, according to reports, was acquired by the AE Industrial Partners investment group last month, has tried to publicly position himself as one of the most responsible actors in the industry.
The company’s website announces “tools, equipment and ideas based on ethically to interrupt intractable threats”, and the media reports that cite people familiar with the company say that Paragon only sells to governments in democratic countries stable.
Natalia Krapiva, a senior technology lawyer in the Access Now defense group, said Paragon had the reputation of being a better Spyware company, “but the recent WhatsApp revelations suggest otherwise.
“This is not just a matter of some bad apples this type of abuse [are] A characteristic of the commercial spyware industry “.
AE did not immediately return a message in search of comments.
