India expects WhatsApp to explain privacy breach

India, the largest market WhatsApp with 400 million users, has asked Facebook-owned (FB.O) company to explain the nature of the breach of privacy on its messaging platform that has affected some users, said Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.
“We have asked WhatsApp to explain the violation and what it does to maintain the privacy of millions of citizens of India,” Prasad said in a tweet on Thursday.
Revelation supervision came after an Israeli reconnaissance enterprise messaging platform NSO Group sued on Tuesday, accusing it of helping government spies into phones of about 1,400 users in four continents, including diplomats, political dissidents, journalists and government officials. NSO denied the allegations.
In the suit filed in federal court in San Francisco, WhatsApp is accused of hacking sprees NSO facilitate governments in 20 countries, calling it “a clear pattern of abuse.”
The attack, according to WhatsApp, exploited video calling system in order to deliver malware to the mobile device from the number of users. Malware This will allow clients NSO - said the government and the intelligence organization - to secretly spy on this phone owners, open their digital lives up to scrutiny.
People familiar with the investigation WhatsApp told that a large number of Indian civil society leaders placed under surveillance by using spyware Israel.
the company has not identified anyone by name, including the Indian lawyers, academics, Dalit rights activists and journalists have come forward to say they received a warning from WhatsApp that they are the target of espionage.
WhatsApp said the Indian was among those contacted by it this week.
WhatsApp declined to comment on the tweet Prasad, but referred to an earlier statement from the company said it believed the person has a fundamental right to privacy and no one else should have access to their private conversation.
Sidhant Sibal, a journalist based in New Delhi, told the University of Toronto Citizen Lab - which investigates digital spying among other research projects - called him about a month ago, informing him that his WhatsApp account is one of several under scrutiny.
He received a text message from this week’s WhatsApp says it cares about “privacy and security”.
“In May we stop an attack in which a virtual actor advanced our video calling exploited to install malware on the user’s device,” the company said, explaining why it was written to Sibal and other affected users like him.
“There is a possibility of phone numbers has an impact, and we want to make sure you know how to keep your phone safe,” he said.
Citizen Lab at the post on its website on 29 Oct says it helps WhatsApp investigate the incident and will continue to contact the affected individuals to help protect their safety.
Last year the Indian government began to encourage companies based in Cupertino, California to trace the origin of some of the messages, said the platform is being used to spread misinformation.
WhatsApp has always maintained it would not take such measures, which would require it to weaken encryption and other privacy protection.
Globally, this platform is used by an estimated 1.5 billion people each month and has often touted high levels of security, including message encrypted end-to-end that can not be described by WhatsApp or other third parties.

(source)