Did you know NSO Spyware Targeted Thousands of WhatsApp Users During a 2019 Hacking Campaign, Court Document Reveals

 

The NSO Group’s infamous Spyware Pegasus targeted nearly 1223 WhatsApp users in nearly 51 countries during a 2019 hacking campaign, a new court document reveals.

The papers shared today was part of a legal proceeding that WhatsApp filed against the Spyware group in 2019. They accused the organization of exploiting new vulnerabilities inside that chat app of targeting hundreds, including nearly 100 human rights advocates, media personnel, and different members of the society.

During that period, the popular texting platform shared how 1400 people from the app were targeted but that is now confirmed to be 1223 victims that were tracked down. The insights could prove where clients were more active and where victims were possibly located.

The nations having the greatest number of victims for this campaign include Mexico, India, Bahrain, Morocco, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Israel. WhatsApp shared the data incorporated into the ‘Victim Country Count’ report. But that does not mean other western nations were not targeted. Spain, France, the UK, the US, and the Netherlands are also on the list.

Several news articles were published with time and they documented using Pegasus to target people around the globe. What is usually mising from the news is the scale at which people keep getting targeted and the number of victims that weren’t even aware. They didn’t get devices checked and some never wished to go public about the matter if they were involved or not.

More data shared showed the exact incident taking place over just two months. So in this short period of time, government clients from the NSO group continued to targeted more than 1000 Whatsapp users.

The figure for victims also provides more insights regarding who could be on the list for highest paying clients. For instance, countries like Mexico is believed to have spent nearly $60 million on the spyware by the NSO group as per the article published in 2023 by the New York Times. This might provide more clarity as to why so many Mexican victims were included in this list.

We have to share that it’s not quite clear right now if there’s a victim present inside a certain nation means that its government was the client making use of the spyware against the victim. It’s very much possible that the government client was using this spyware to target another individual in a different nation.