WhatsApp confirms Indian journalists and activists targeted in hack

Facebook’s messaging platform WhatsApp said journalists and human rights activists in India have been targets of surveillance by operators using Israeli spyware Pegasus.

WhatsApp alleged in a lawsuit on Tuesday that the Israeli NSO Group targeted some 1,400 WhatsApp users with Pegasus. While WhatsApp declined to reveal the identities and exact number of those targeted for surveillance in India, its spokesperson confirmed that WhatsApp was aware of those targeted and had contacted each one of them.

Indian Express reported that at least two dozen academics, lawyers, Dalit activists and journalists in India were contacted and alerted by WhatsApp that their phones had been under surveillance for a two-week period until May 2019.

The NSO Group, in a statement, have said it disputes Facebook’s allegations and will vigorously fight them. It claimed Pegasus has been sold only to government agencies.