A team of European law-enforcement officials was hot on the trail of a potential terror plot in October, fearing an attack during Christmas season, when their keyhole into a suspect’s phone went dark. WhatsApp, Facebook Inc. ’s popular messaging tool, had just notified about 1,400 users — among them the suspected terrorist — that their phones had been hacked by an “advanced cyber actor.” An elite surveillance team was using spyware from NSO Group, an Israeli company, to track the suspect, according to a law-enforcement official overseeing the investigation.
Read the article: The Wall Street Journal
