NSO Group’s infamous Spyware Pegasus was used to target 1,223 Whatsapp users in 51 different countries during a 2019 hacking campaign, according to a new judicial document.
The document was published on Friday as part of the lawsuit filed by Meta Whatsapp against the NSO Group in 2019, accusing the surveillance technician for exploiting a vulnerability in the conversation application to target hundreds of users, including more than 100 human rights activists and “
At that time, Whatsapp said that about 1,400 users were targeting. Now, an exhibition published in the judicial document shows exactly what countries were 1,223 special victims when they had targeted the NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware.
The destruction of the country is a rare image in which NSO customers can be more active and where their victims and goals are located.
The countries with the most victims of this campaign are Mexico, with 456 people. India, with 100; Bahrain with 82? Morocco, with 69? Pakistan, with 58? Indonesia, with 54? And Israel, with 51, according to a graph entitled “County County Count”, that WhatsApp has submitted as part of the case.
There are also victims in Western countries such as Spain (12 victims), the Netherlands (11), Hungary (8), France (7), the United Kingdom (2) and a victim in the United States.
The court document with the list of victims by country was first reported by Israeli CTEch news site.
“Many news articles have been written over the years that document the use of Pegasus to target victims around the world,” said Runa Sandvik, a cyberspace expert who was Monitoring of government software victims for years.
“What is often missing from these articles is the true scale of targeting-the number of not notified victims, who did not take their devices were tested for the actual scale of the problem that do not share their story.
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Another piece of data showing that the government’s spyware problem is that the hacking campaign targeting WhatsApp users occurred in a period of only two months, “between in and around April 2019 and May 2019”, as Whatsapp writes in its it it initial complaint.
In other words, in just two months, NSO Group government clients are targeting more than a thousand WhatsApp users.
It is important to note that it is not clear whether the fact that there is a victim in a particular country means that the government of this country was the customer who uses the NSO group’s spyware against these victims. It is likely that a government client could use Pegasus to target someone outside the country.
As CTECH noted, Syria appears in the victim list, but the NSO Group cannot export its technology to Syria, a country that is sanctions from countries around the world.
The number of victims also gives a picture of who may be the highest customers of NSO Group. Companies such as the NSO Group and other predecessors such as the hacking team and Finfisher determine which price will offer their surveillance products to their customers in part from the number of goals that can be infected at the same time with Spyware.
Mexico, for example, was reported to have spent more than $ 60 million on NSO Group Spyware, According to a New York Times article 2023 This was stated by Mexican officials who could explain why there are so many Mexican goals in this list.
Last year, Whatsapp scored a historic victory when the lawsuit chaired by the lawsuit ruled that the NSO Group had violated us the laws of being, targeting WhatsApp users. The next step in the lawsuit is an upcoming hearing that will determine the compensation that the manufacturer Spyware will have to pay in WhatsApp.
In addition to this list of victims, whatsapp’s judicial case has led to other revelations, including the fact that the NSO group disconnects 10 government customers after reports that they have abused SPYWARE software and that the Whatsapp Hacking tool produced by NSO costs up to 6.8 million dollars. won the company “At least $ 31 million in revenue in 2019.”
Whatsapp Zade Alsawah spokesman refused to comment. The NSO Group did not respond to a request for comments.
