Hackers installed spy programs WhatsApp users

In the WhatsApp messenger, a vulnerability was discovered that allows hackers to hack user phones with a simple call. With its help, attackers could install spy programs on the basis of Android and iOS, allowing you to monitor the owners of the phones. The attack was prepared by an Israeli company, previously noticed for hacking the correspondence of human rights groups, for example, Amnesty International, writes Financial Times.

WhatsApp use about one and a half billion people around the world. The attackers managed to create a system in which it was enough to call the number of the attacked person to hack the messenger, and he did not have to pick up the phone. How much time there was a vulnerability and how many people were attacked to it is unknown.

At the beginning of the month, vulnerability was discovered by WhatsApp specialists. They warned several human rights groups, companies specializing in security and the US Department of Justice, representatives of the BBC messenger said . On the night of May 14, Moscow time, the application was updated , and the possibility of attacks was closed to all users.

According to FT, the Israeli company NSO Group, which specializes in software for hacks of secure equipment, can be behind the attack. The company's products are used by special services of a number of countries to monitor the suspects. At the beginning of 2019, it became known that the special services of Saudi Arabia used the development of the company to survive and kill journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The human rights group Amnesty International reported that its employees were attacked with the help of the company's products. Today, the court in Tel Aviv will consider the Amnesty International requirement to the Ministry of Defense of Israel to ban the export of NSO Group products to other countries. In the company's statement, the use of vulnerability to WhatsApp is not denied, but it is said that its products are used to combat crime and terrorism.