WhatsApp chief says national security officials of US allies were among those targeted with NSO malware
WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart said senior government officials of US allies, including some in national-security roles, were targets of Pegasus phone malware in 2019.
Cathcart's statements, which were featured in an interview by The Guardian on Sunday, followed reports last week from the Pegasus Project, a consortium that included The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Amnesty International.
The reports said an Israeli company sold access to military-grade spyware, which was used to hack the phones of journalists, activists, and government officials. NSO Group, the company behind the Pegasus software, denied the phone numbers leaked to the consortium were Pegasus targets. WhatsApp sued NSO Group in October 2019, saying about 1,400 mobile devices running the app were targeted by the company's surveillance software.
