Pegasus spyware targeted 100 WhatsApp users in India, second-highest globally
At least 100 of the 1,223 persons targeted using Israeli spyware Pegasus in a 2019 WhatsApp hacking campaign were located in India, Medianama reported on Thursday, citing a new legal filing in a United States court.
The legal filing published on April 4 was part of the court exhibits in a lawsuit filed by WhatsApp against Israeli NSO Group Technologies, which makes Pegasus.
WhatsApp, owned by US-based technology company Meta, has been locked in a legal battle with the Israeli cyber intelligence company since 2019. The messaging platform has alleged that the NSO Group’s spyware had been used against 1,400 users of the application over a two-week period in April 2019 and May 2019.
On December 20, a US district court ruled that NSO Group was liable for unauthorised surveillance of the 1,400 WhatsApp accounts using its spyware Pegasus in 2019.
The damages owed by the NSO Group to WhatsApp will reportedly be determined in a separate trial.
During the hearings, WhatsApp had listed the number of persons who were targeted using Pegasus by country over the two-week period. The users were spread across 51 countries.
Mexico topped the list with 456 persons being targeted. This was followed by India (100), Bahrain (82), Morocco (69), Pakistan (58), Indonesia (54) and Israel (51).
Twenty-six persons were targeted in Turkey, 21 in Spain and seven in France, according...
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