{"id":230415,"date":"2026-04-02T05:51:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T09:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/whatsapp-alerts-200-users-after-fake-ios-app-installed-spyware-italian-firm-faces-action\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T11:02:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T15:02:40","slug":"whatsapp-alerts-200-users-after-fake-ios-app-installed-spyware-italian-firm-faces-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/whatsapp-alerts-200-users-after-fake-ios-app-installed-spyware-italian-firm-faces-action\/","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp Alerts 200 Users After Fake iOS App Installed Spyware; Italian Firm Faces Action"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehackernews.com\/2026\/04\/whatsapp-alerts-200-users-after-fake.html\">WhatsApp Alerts 200 Users After Fake iOS App Installed Spyware; Italian Firm Faces Action<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehackernews.com\/2026\/04\/whatsapp-alerts-200-users-after-fake.html\">https:\/\/thehackernews.com\/2026\/04\/whatsapp-alerts-200-users-after-fake.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-04-02 05:51:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"thehackernews.com\">thehackernews.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"p-author\">\ue804<span class=\"author\">Ravie Lakshmanan<\/span>\ue802<span class=\"author\">Apr 02, 2026<\/span><\/span><span class=\"p-tags\">Surveillance \/ Mobile Security<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp said it alerted about 200 users who were tricked into installing a bogus version of its iOS app that was infected with\u00a0spyware.<\/p>\n<p>According to reports from Italian\u00a0newspaper La Repubblica and news\u00a0agency ANSA, the vast majority of the targets are located in Italy. It&#8217;s assessed that the threat actors behind the activity used social engineering tactics to get users to install malicious software that mimicked\u00a0WhatsApp.<\/p>\n<p>All the affected users have been logged out and have been recommended to uninstall the malware-laced apps and download the official WhatsApp app. WhatsApp did not reveal who was targeted in these\u00a0attacks.<\/p>\n<p>The tech giant said it&#8217;s also taking action against Asigint, an Italian subsidiary of spyware company SIO, for allegedly creating a counterfeit version of\u00a0WhatsApp.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On its website, the company advertises solutions to law enforcement agencies, government organizations, and police and intelligence agencies for monitoring suspect activities, gathering intelligence, or conducting covert operations.<\/p>\n<p>In December 2025, TechCrunch reported that SIO was behind a set of malicious Android apps that masqueraded as WhatsApp and other popular apps but stole private data from a target&#8217;s device using a spyware family called Spyrtacus. The\u00a0apps are believed to have been used by a government customer to target unknown victims in\u00a0Italy.<\/p>\n<p>SIO is one of the many Italian companies selling surveillance tools, including Cy4Gate, eSurv, GR Sistemi, Negg, Raxir, and RCS Lab, turning the country into a\u00a0&#8220;spyware\u00a0hub.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Early last year,\u00a0WhatsApp alerted around 90 users that they were targeted with Paragon Solutions&#8217; spyware known as Graphite. Then, in August 2025,\u00a0it notified less than 200 users who may have been targeted as part of a sophisticated campaign by chaining together zero-day vulnerabilities in iOS and the messaging\u00a0app.<\/p>\n<p>The development comes a&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thehackernews.com\/2026\/04\/whatsapp-alerts-200-users-after-fake.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WhatsApp Alerts 200 Users After Fake iOS App Installed Spyware; Italian Firm Faces Action https:\/\/thehackernews.com\/2026\/04\/whatsapp-alerts-200-users-after-fake.html&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhH1Qe0E88MYHp7xg6ApE5TypZK__02tmUnhvX60svA9npwirnTJbAb-Wl4rvLo3gq3kX1l9JUXDgXZJ0yPGNZlUo8n5DG1-pqONNFQIA2epqNdU7tNGZSJPJCthWLHtnDdO8jWQ5YzwY7TWUn_9SJP5pu0vHX2i3-L0zM5dZscSR4wAUPWAN1fm-3zgOGE\/s1600\/whatsapp-alert.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-230415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-malware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230415"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230417,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230415\/revisions\/230417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}