It is suspected that around 90 users of the Meta WhatsApp chat service were the objectives of a Spyware campaign carried out by an Israeli spyware company called Paragon Solutions, said a WhatsApp spokesman A NBC News.
The spokesman said that the attack was addressed to several users, including journalists and civil society members “in more than two dozen countries, particularly in Europe.” They added that Paragon Solutions has used a vector, a method to illegally access a network, to go to users and that “the vector involved using groups and sending a malicious PDF file.” The spokesman added that the company has “successfully interrupted this exploitation vector.”
WhatsApp has sent Paragon Solutions a cessation and withdrawal letter after the series of attack attempts. The spokesman said that those believed that they are affected have been notified through the WhatsApp chat and information on how to protect from the Spyware has been provided. Paragon Solutions did not respond to an immediate request for comments.
“These attackers seek vulnerabilities in applications or in the mobile phone operating system or try Putting your privacy and security at risk, “reads a WhatsApp help page in Spyware.
The spokesman said that the company’s security team and Citizen Lab, a cyber security laboratory based in Mock School of Global Asses at the University of Toronto, helped track the Spyware campaign.
John Scott-Rilton, main researcher at Citizen Lab, told NBC News that a trick like this has the ability to “turn a phone into a spy into your pocket.”
“When a phone is infected, the operator of that spyware can generally do anything you as a user can do on the phone,” said Scott-Rilton. “You can access your encrypted messages, your chats, look at your photographs, navigate your messages, listen to your voice notes, look at your notes, read your contacts, get your passwords and also do some things that you can ” t do, like Silent activate the microphone to listen to a conversation that could have in a room or turn on the camera. “
WhatsApp worked with Citizen Lab in 2019 when the Chat Service demanded the Israeli Surveillance NSO Group, accusing it of helping government spies to hack the phones of more than one thousand users, including journalists, diplomats, high government officials and dissidents politicians In December, an American judge failed in favor of WhatsApp. That same month, the AE Industrial Partners Investment Group, a competitor of NSO Group, acquired Paragon Solutions. It is still believed that Paragon Solutions operates in Israel.
Natalia Krapiva, a senior technological lawyer in the non -profit access to Internet access now, says that the investigation of the non -profit organization has found that these attacks against “journalists and other civil society actors are becoming common” .
“The last time WhatsApp notified the victims of the NSO in 2019, we have seen an avalanche of demands, sanctions and other consequences for this industry,” Krapiva said. “But we need more action of legislators and the technological sector to reign in the industry, since it obviously cannot be monitored.”
