Archive:May 15, 2019

By Cameron Abbott, Rob Pulham and Michelle Aggromito

Unfortunately for all of us, Privacy Awareness Week doesn’t mean a chance to take a break from seemingly endless data breach notifications and social media vulnerabilities.

This week it’s WhatsApp’s turn, with reports that hackers, or as WhatsApp described as “an advanced cyber-actor”, have been able to remotely install surveillance software on phones and other devices of select targets, likely to be lawyers, journalists, activists and human rights defenders. The hackers were able to compromise the devices by using WhatsApp’s call function to ring the devices. The surveillance software was still installed even if the call was not picked up and the call reportedly would disappear from the compromised device’s call log. This means the malware could be installed without any action from the compromised user – and potentially without them even being able to determine that they had been compromised.