WhatsApp warns its users about the threat by malware attack made by Israel

News24xx.com - The security loopholes on WhatsApp are exploited to insert spyware into the application, both on Android and iOS. Spyware is said to be made by an Israeli company, allegedly named the NSO Group and already crossing the world of cyber security. Self-infiltration is done via WhatsApp Call, and reportedly can disappear from the application log.

When it has infected a smartphone via a WhatsApp account, this spyware can turn on the cellphone's camera and microphone, scan e-mails and messages, and monitor the user's movements from the cellphone's GPS, as quoted from The Verge, on Tuesday, May 14th 2019. WhatsApp appealed to its users, who currently reach 1.5 billion people, to immediately update their applications with the latest version of which security gaps have been patched.

"WhatsApp calls on users to update their applications to the latest version and also keep the mobile operating system up to date, to protect themselves from exploits designed to steal information stored on mobile devices" WhatsApp wrote in a statement.

This security gap was first discovered in early May when a lawyer received a call from John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab from the University of Toronto, who mentioned that he was the target of a cyber-attack. WhatsApp itself claimed to have successfully blocked the attack to the lawyer from London, England, but could not estimate how many victims of this spyware attack.

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