This Isreali Spyware can Hack into Your Phone through WhatsApp!

Privacy and integrity have pretty much become a textbook topic nowadays. I feel it should be carved in stone as a fundamental right of a fellow internet surfer.

Let me ask you a question. Do you use WhatsApp messenger?

Well, of course, you do! There are actually more than 400 million users here in India alone, which makes it the company's largest marketplace.

Unfortunately though, even with all its "end-to-end encryption" jazz, our mobile devices may have been compromised through WhatsApp!

You may already be aware that nobody is really incognito while using a device that can connect to the internet; not completely anyway.

A couple of years ago, around 2013, a name started floating around striking fear in WhatsApp users.

Pegasus!

It started when a Human rights activist from UAE received several suspicious links on his WhatsApp, which he sent over to the bright people at Citizen Labs research group from the University of Toronto.

They discovered that these links were indeed sent as an attempt to break into his phone and snoop around for any sensitive data.

The feat was credited to the cutting-edge spyware developed by the Israeli Intelligence Corps, named Pegasus.

NSO Group, the minds behind Pegasus say that they only sell the software to government bodies for "surveillance" purposes.

Though the Indian government says no orders were placed for any such software to be in place, the folks at WhatsApp think otherwise.

It's been revealed that over 1400 people have already been targetted so far, about 121 of whom were Indian political personalities.

In an attempt to protect and retain its vast user base, WhatsApp has reached out to the victims and brought them up to speed whilstasking them to also update their app.

They've also filed a lawsuit on NSO for using their app to exploit Cell phones.

That's all some crazy, shady shit that seems to happen to political activists and such.

But you might be wondering;

Why should you care?

Unfortunately, being a normal user doesn't exempt you from being a target to a sophisticated software like this.

Transfer of this spyware a simple missed WhatsApp call away!

It exploits vulnerabilities in WhatsApp's VoIP protocol stack used to make voice and video calls over the internet.

It crawls through your photos, audio and video files, contacts, and other things stored locally on your phone's memory and transmits them to its host.

If it finds that it cannot send out data as of the current moment, it stores them in an encrypted container created in the phone itself!

Fascinating and frightening at the same time, ain't it?

So, what can you do to stop it?

Nothing much, really!

I mean. when a sophisticated piece of code like this gets channeled through huge messaging platforms while being fueled by the government itself, I'm afraid we really don't stand much of a chance.

What we can do is stay updated with these kinds of news outbreaks, so...

SUBSCRIBE TO MY DAMN BLOG ALREADY!

Now that I've expelled that out of my system and probably lost all three of you who still read my blogs, I can safely say I'm also into videos now, so...

SUBSCRIBE TO MY DAMN CHANNEL ALREADY!

Okay, I'm done. Uninstall WhatsApp, throw away your phone and get some Real Friends (let me know what that's like at my Instagram)

Cheers!