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An Israeli spyware company that has been accused by WhatsApp of hacking 1,400 of its users, including journalists, human rights activists, and diplomatic officials, has blamed its government clients for the alleged abuses, according to court documents.
NSO Group – whose technology is reported to have been used against dozens of targets including Pakistani intelligence officials, Indian journalists and exiled Rwandan political activists – also claimed in legal documents that the lawsuit brought against the company by WhatsApp threatened to infringe on its clients “national security and foreign policy concerns”.
NSO Group has never disclosed a full list of its government clients, but research by Citizen Lab, which tracks the use of spyware, has claimed that current and former clients include: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates.
WhatsApp, the popular messaging app, filed a lawsuit against NSO Group in October, alleging...