Israeli Hack company “investigates Abuse” after major WhatsApp leak. The Israeli company NSO Group, which develops espionage software, says every “credible allegation of abuse” by investigating its products has informed the company to human rights organisation Amnesty International.
The company came in the news on Tuesday after it was declared that WhatsApp had a severe vulnerability in its calling function.
It would have been used by the NSO to develop software that could be used to monitor smartphones.
NSO formally only sells its espionage software to governments,
to enable them to tackle terrorism and organised crime.
Nevertheless, according to researchers,
the company’s software has been used against activists and journalists, among others.
A lawyer based in the United Kingdom would have fallen victim to espionage on Sunday through the WhatsApp leak.
WhatsApp has issued an update on Tuesday that removes the vulnerability.
The company, which is part of Facebook, calls on its 1.5 billion users to install the update.
NSO sends a letter to Amnesty International
In a letter sent to Amnesty on Wednesday, British investment company Novalpina,
which owns about two-thirds of NSO Group,
says it is determined “to do what it takes to ensure that NSO technology is used for its intended purpose”.
With this, Novalpina means that the products “are not misused in a way that undermines fundamental human rights”.
In the letter, the company did not explicitly address the vulnerability in WhatsApp,
and the message that its spying software was allegedly used against a lawyer.