WhatsApp says it caught new spyware attacks linked to NSO Group in violation of court order


WhatsApp said that it disrupted a new hacking campaign linked to NSO Group, a spyware maker that has been ensnared in countless cases of abuse all over the world. The messaging app maker accused NSO of violating an earlier court order that bars the company from targeting WhatsApp and its users with its spyware, and is seeking to hold NSO in contempt of court.

On Monday, the Meta-owned chat app announced that it “caught and disrupted spear phishing attempts linked to NSO” after an investigation prompted by user reports. “They tried to trick people into clicking on malicious links to drive them to external websites outside of WhatsApp,” the company wrote. “We also caught them creating test accounts and groups on WhatsApp, which we took down.”

Read more…
Source:  TechCrunch News


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • MonitorMinor: vicious stalkerware?

    March 16, 2020

    What is the usual functionality of stalkerware? The most basic thing is to transmit the victim’s current geolocation. There are many such “stalkers”, since various special web resources are used to display coordinates, and they only contain a few lines of code. Often, their creators use geofencing technology, whereby a notification about the victim’s movements is ...

  • Gamaredon APT Improves Toolset to Target Ukraine Government, Military

    February 5, 2020

    The Gamaredon advanced persistent threat (APT) group has been supercharging its operations lately, improving its toolset and ramping up attacks on Ukrainian national security targets. Vitali Kremez, head of SentinelLabs, said in research released on Wednesday that he has been tracking an uptick in Gamaredon cyberattacks on Ukrainian military and security institutions that started in December. ...

  • FBI launches investigation into Pegasus spyware vendor over US citizen hacks

    January 31, 2020

    The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched an investigation into NSO Group based on suspicions that US residents and companies may have been compromised for intelligence-gathering purposes. According to the Reuters news agency, investigators began examining NSO in 2017 during an inquiry into whether US hackers had provided the code necessary for the company to ...

  • NSO Group President Defends Controversial Tactics

    November 27, 2019

    In a rare public appearance by Shiri Dolev, the president of the secretive NSO Group Technologies, the company leader vented over what she called “false myths” about the firm. Dolev also took indirect aim at secure messaging platforms, offered by the likes of Facebook, explaining surveillance companies may soon have to step in where law ...

  • New WhatsApp Bug Could Have Let Hackers Secretly Install Spyware On Your Devices

    November 16, 2019

    The vulnerability affects both consumers as well as enterprise apps of WhatsApp for all major platforms, including Google Android, Apple iOS, and Microsoft Windows. According to an advisory published by Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, the list of affected app versions are as follows: Android versions before 2.19.274 iOS versions before 2.19.100 Enterprise Client versions before 2.25.3 Windows Phone versions before and ...

  • WhatsApp Spyware Attack: Uncovering NSO Group Activity

    October 30, 2019

    On the heels of Facebook filing a lawsuit against Israeli company NSO Group — alleging that it was behind the massive WhatsApp hack earlier this year — privacy experts say that the move is “popping the unaccountable bubble” that commercial spyware companies have carved out for themselves. After disclosing the lawsuit,WhatsApp said that cyber security experts at the Citizen Lab, ...