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Thursday, February 6, 2025

WhatsApp Says Spyware Company Paragon Targeted Users in Two Dozen Countries


An official with Meta Platforms’ in style WhatsApp chat service mentioned Israeli adware firm Paragon Solutions had focused scores of its customers, together with journalists and members of civil society.

The official mentioned on Friday that WhatsApp had despatched Paragon a cease-and-desist letter following the hack. In a press release, WhatsApp mentioned the corporate “will proceed to guard folks’s potential to speak privately.”

Paragon declined to remark.

The WhatsApp official informed Reuters it had detected an effort to hack roughly 90 customers.

The official declined to say who, particularly, was focused. But he mentioned these focused have been based mostly in additional than two dozen nations, together with a number of folks in Europe. He mentioned WhatsApp customers have been despatched malicious digital paperwork that required no person interplay to compromise their targets, a so-called zero-click hack that’s thought-about notably stealthy.

The official mentioned WhatsApp had since disrupted the hacking effort and was referring targets to Canadian web watchdog group Citizen Lab. The official declined to debate the way it decided that Paragon was answerable for the hack. He mentioned legislation enforcement and business companions had been knowledgeable, however declined to present particulars.

The FBI didn’t instantly return a message searching for remark.

Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Railton mentioned the invention of Paragon adware focusing on WhatsApp customers “is a reminder that mercenary adware continues to proliferate and because it does, so we proceed to see acquainted patterns of problematic use.”

Spyware retailers reminiscent of Paragon promote high-end surveillance software program to authorities purchasers and sometimes pitch their companies as essential to combating crime and defending nationwide safety.

But such spy instruments have repeatedly been found on the telephones of journalists, activists, opposition politicians, and at the very least 50 U.S. officers, elevating issues over the unchecked proliferation of the know-how.

Paragon – which was reportedly acquired by Florida-based funding group AE Industrial Partners final month – has tried to place itself publicly as one of many business’s extra accountable gamers.

Its web site advertises “ethically based mostly instruments, groups, and insights to disrupt intractable threats,” and media stories citing folks conversant in the corporate say Paragon solely sells to governments in steady democratic nations.

Natalia Krapiva, senior tech-legal counsel on the advocacy group Access Now, mentioned Paragon had the status of being a greater adware firm, “however WhatsApp’s current revelations recommend in any other case.”

“This isn’t just a query of some dangerous apples — all these abuses (are) a function of the industrial adware business.”

AE didn’t instantly return a message searching for remark.

© Thomson Reuters 2025



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