Cyberwarfare is on the march, but there is nothing in the Geneva conventions to cover it
We don’t yet know for sure who used Israeli company NSO’s software to hack WhatsApp users – the messaging service’s parent company Facebook has said only that the culprit is an “advanced cyber actor” – but all signs point to it being a government. According to one analysis, NSO has 45 governments as clients including, amazingly, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, even though officially these states don’t recognise Israel.
Whoever the culprit, the WhatsApp attack will surely be added to a long list of state-backed attacks that includes Russia’s 2015 takedown of Ukraine’s power grid, China’s persistent intellectual property thefts and North Korea’s attack on Sony Pictures over the film The Interview. And yes, the west does it too – the United States used a cyber-weapon to take down Iran’s nuclear programme in 2010 – the so-called Stuxnet attack.
Related: WhatsApp spyware attack was attempt to hack human rights data, says lawyer
Related: The Guardian view on hacking: a dangerous arms trade | Editorial
from Data and computer security | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2LGxnJb
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