The recent WhatsApp hack targeted government and military officials across 20 US-allied countries, exposing the vulnerability of mobile apps. It’s time governments put in place controls that restrict the use of third-party apps by their functionaries.
By Kunal Chatterjee
Senior government officials in multiple US-allied countries were targeted earlier this year with hacking software that used Facebook Inc’s <FB.O> WhatsApp to take over users’ phones, according to people familiar with the messaging company’s investigation.
Sources familiar with WhatsApp’s internal investigation into the breach said a “significant” portion of the known victims were high-profile government and military officials spread across at least 20 countries on five continents. Many of the nations are US allies, they said.
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.
WhatsApp filed a lawsuit on recently against Israeli hacking tool developer NSO Group. The Facebook-owned software giant alleged that NSO Group built and sold a hacking platform that exploited a flaw in WhatsApp-owned servers to help clients hack into the cellphones of at least 1,400 users between April 29, 2019, and May 10, 2019.
The total number of WhatsApp users hacked could be even higher. A London-based human rights lawyer, who was among the targets, sent news agencies photographs showing attempts to break into his phone dating back to April 1 this year.
While it is not clear who used the software to hack officials’ phones, NSO has said it sells its spyware exclusively to government customers.
Some victims are in the United States, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Mexico, Pakistan and India, said people familiar with the investigation. We could not verify whether the government officials were from those countries or elsewhere. Going by NSO’s statement, it’s clear that these attacks could have been perpetrated by nation-states.
Some Indian nationals to have gone public with allegations they were among the targets over the past few days; they include journalists, academics, lawyers and defenders of India’s Dalit community.
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.” Previously it has denied any wrongdoing, saying its products are only meant to help governments catch terrorists and criminals.
Cybersecurity researchers have cast doubt on those claims over the years, saying NSO products were used against a wide range of targets, including protesters in countries under authoritarian rule.
Citizen Lab, an independent watchdog group that worked with WhatsApp to identify the hacking targets, said on Tuesday at least hundreds 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.
“It is an open secret that many technologies branded for law enforcement investigations are used for state-on-state and political espionage,” Scott-Railton said.
Prior to notifying victims, 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. The company has declined to comment on the identities of NSO Group’s clients, who ultimately chose the targets.
To conclude, what these incidences reveal is that mobile applications are as vulnerable as any website we visit and cyber predators can target people for critical information. It’s time cyber cells of nations, technology providers and researchers got together and came up with solutions and strategies for greater mobile security.
