After WhatsApp snooping row, now Google warned 12,000 users

It’s not even a month ago that messaging giant Whatsapp revealed that an Israeli software called Pegasus had been used to spy on journalists and human rights activists globally. 121 Indians were among those spied on.

Well, by this time you might be aware of the news, but if not, here’s a lowdown on it:
Google said on Tuesday it has warned 12,000 users, including 500 from India, between July and September this year, about being targeted by ‘government-backed attackers’.

What is a government-backed attack?

It’s when a nation state helps cyber criminals with funds and access to resources to attack a specified target.

Russia, North Korea, China, and Iran have been known to sponsor attacks through phishing and other means on people from different countries.

In fact, in a blogpost, Google said its Threat Analysis Group (TAG) tracks more than 270-targetes or government-backed groups from over 50 countries, without naming any entity.

TAG is a part of Google and YouTube’s broader efforts to tackle coordinated influence operations that attempt to game Google’s services. Google said it shares relevant threat information on these campaigns with law enforcement and other tech companies.

Shane Huntley, one of the members of TAG, said in a blogpost that the affected users were spread across 149 countries, and the number was similar to (up or down 10 per cent) the number of warnings sent in the same period of 2018 and 2017.