Hacking complaints alarm WhatsApp users in Pakistan

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has said it received 1,426 complaints about compromised WhatsApp accounts since July 1st.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told the Senate on Tuesday that about 1,500 WhatsApp accounts nationwide have been hacked.

The CCW is presently evaluating an additional 877 complaints, 20 of which were escalated to formal enquiries, he said, adding that 549 compromised accounts had been successfully restored from the registered complaints.

According to Naqvi, 817 complaints are pending verification and 40 complaints are pending responses.

According to Saqib Nisar, the former chief justice of Pakistan, a complaint was submitted to the CCW last year to retrieve his “hacked” WhatsApp account.

The FIA would handle Nisar’s son’s complaint in accordance with ordinary operating procedure, according to FIA sources.

According to the sources, the agency did not have enough employees to handle the large volume of complaints it received via its online site and other venues.

Some hackers had tried to impersonate government officials in order to access senior bureaucrats’ cell phones.

Additionally, they had attempted to obtain information by using WhatsApp to spread malware.

Several joint secretaries and other secretaries in other ministries got messages from hackers posing as their superiors and other senior officials in different departments, as well as a top government official who was aware of the hacking activities.

A “significant” percentage of the identified victims, according to sources familiar with WhatsApp’s internal investigation into the incident, were prominent military and political figures dispersed over at least 20 nations on five continents.