On October 30, 2019,

WhatsApp WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger) is an American social media, instant messaging (IM), and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make vo ...

's parent company

Facebook, Inc. Meta Platforms, Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Meta owns and operates several prominent social media platforms and communication services, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads ...

confirmed that

Pegasus Pegasus (; ) is a winged horse in Greek mythology, usually depicted as a white stallion. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa. Pegasus was the brother of Chrysaor, both born from Medusa's blood w ...

, a sophisticated snooping software developed by Israel's

NSO Group NSO Group Technologies (NSO standing for Niv, Shalev and Omri, the names of the company's founders) is an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance ...

, was used to target Indian journalists, activists, lawyers and senior government officials. The journalists and activists are believed to have been targets of surveillance for a two-week period until May, when the Indian national election was held. The snooping scandal came out after WhatsApp filed a case in California's Northern District federal court against the NSO group, alleging the NSO group had developed the software used to infect 1,400 target devices with malware. The IT Ministry of India sought a detailed response from WhatsApp on the issue. They responded that they had alerted the government on two occasions—once in May and for the second time in September 2019. In response to Indian Government's order, WhatsApp informed the Computer Emergency Response Team of India in May and September that Pegasus spyware affected Indian WhatsApp users.

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...

party alleged that the

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

-led government has been caught snooping on journalists, activists, lawyers and senior government officials. They later alleged that their leaders, including general secretary

Priyanka Gandhi Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (''née'' Gandhi; born 12 January 1972) is an Indian politician who is serving as the member of the Lok Sabha for Wayanad, Kerala, since November 2024. A member of the Indian National Congress, she is also serving as a ge ...

, are also being targeted by this. They also claimed WhatsApp sent messages to different people whose phones were hacked. One such message was also received from the WhatsApp of Priyanka Gandhi a few months ago. Former Chief Financial officer of

Infosys Infosys Limited is an Indian multinational corporation, multinational technology company that offers business consulting, information technology, and outsourcing services. Founded in 1981 in Pune, the company is headquartered in Bengaluru. On ...

Mr. T.V. Mohandas Pai also demanded government to probe on the scandal and to come out with a report before the public.

Broader context of Pegasus spyware usage

The WhatsApp incident was part of a larger pattern of

Pegasus spyware Pegasus is spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group that is designed to be covertly and remotely installed on mobile phones running iOS and Android. While NSO Group markets Pegasus as a product for fighting crime and terro ...

abuse. Investigations by the Pegasus Project (2021) revealed that governments worldwide used the malware to target journalists, activists, and politicians, including associates of murdered Saudi journalist

Jamal Khashoggi Jamal Ahmad Hamza Khashoggi (13 October 1958 – 2 October 2018) was a Saudi journalist, Saudi dissidents, dissident, author, columnist for ''Middle East Eye'' and ''The Washington Post'', and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab New ...

and staff of French President

Emmanuel Macron Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France and Co-Prince of Andorra since 2017. He was Ministry of Economy and Finance (France), Minister of Economics, Industr ...

Technical details

The attack exploited CVE-2019-3568, a

zero-click exploit An exploit is a method or piece of code that takes advantage of vulnerabilities in software, applications, networks, operating systems, or hardware, typically for malicious purposes. The term "exploit" derives from the English verb "to exploit," m ...

vulnerability in WhatsApp's

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...

stack. The exploit allowed installation of Pegasus spyware without any user interaction. WhatsApp patched the vulnerability through server-side fixes and client updates in May 2019.

Global legal repercussions

Beyond lawsuits in the U.S. and India, the scandal prompted regulatory scrutiny in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

, where lawmakers questioned NSO Group's compliance with

GDPR The General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), abbreviated GDPR, is a European Union regulation on information privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of ...

requirements. The Israeli government subsequently tightened oversight of

cyberweapon Cyberweapons are commonly defined as malware agents employed for military, paramilitary, or intelligence objectives as part of a cyberattack. This includes computer viruses, trojans, spyware, and worms that can introduce malicious code into ex ...

exports.

NSO Group's response

NSO Group maintained that Pegasus was licensed exclusively to governments for

counterterrorism Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and Intelligence agency, intelligence ...

purposes. The company stated it had no visibility into how clients used the software, though this claim was disputed by researchers.

Impact on WhatsApp

Following the disclosure, many users migrated to alternative messaging platforms like

Signal A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...

and

Telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pi ...

. WhatsApp responded by enhancing its security communications and emphasizing its commitment to

end-to-end encryption End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a method of implementing a secure communication system where only communicating users can participate. No one else, including the system provider, telecom providers, Internet providers or malicious actors, can ...

Broader context of Pegasus spyware usage

Technical details

Global legal repercussions

NSO Group's response

Impact on WhatsApp

See also

References

Further reading