A Mexican businessman has pleaded guilty to selling spyware and hacking tools to people in Mexico and the United States. The spyware and hacking tools can hack WhatsApp messages.
Mexican Businessman Admits Selling Spyware
Carlos Guerrero owns several businesses in the U.S. and Mexico. The Justice Department said that he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to sell hacking tools like Wi-Fi interception tools, signal jammers, IMSI catchers known as stingrays used to track someone's phone, and spyware that can hack WhatsApp messages to clients in both countries.
Guerrero is accused of selling hacking tools to both private and government customers in Mexico, who would use the tools for personal reasons, according to Times of San Diego.
The prosecutors added that Guerrero arranged for a mayor in Mexico to get unauthorized access to his political rival's email and social accounts. Guerrero also used the tools to intercept phone calls from his rivals in the U.S.
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From 2014 to 2015, Guerrero worked as a distributor for an Italian company. But in the court filing was only referenced as Company A. The prosecutors said that the company sold hacking devices and geolocation tools.
Even though the Italian company was unnamed, the prosecutors believe that the company is Hacking Team, a company based in Milan that made intrusion tools.
The company was hacked in 2015, and its internal emails were published online, including a series of messages referencing Guerrero.
Guerrero is also accused by prosecutors of using his company, Elite by Carga, to import illegal hacking tools that companies in Israel developed.
The indictment did not name the other companies that made hacking tools, including the company that could hack messages on WhatsApp, according to Security Week.
Use of Pegasus Spyware
The most documented hacking tool, Pegasus, which Israeli company NSO Group developed, was also used in Mexico.
The country has spent more than $61 million on contracts over the past 20 years, often targeting human rights defenders, journalists, and activists.
According to a leaked list of phone numbers that are believed to be surveillance targets of NSO, Mexico has the highest number of targets, with a total of 700 phones, compared to any other country on the list. The NSO has repeatedly denied that they have a list of surveillance targets.
NSO is one of the many Israeli companies that can hack into a person's phone via WhatsApp, and it is currently in the middle of a legal battle with Facebook for using an exploit in WhatsApp to hack into a total of 1,400 phones.
NSO has stated that it only sells its spyware to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The company claimed that Pegasus spyware couldn't target phone numbers from the United States, but foreign numbers can still be targeted while in the United States.
The Israeli company offers spyware for U.S. law enforcement called Phantom through its US-based subsidiary Westbridge Technologies.
U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman told TechCrunch that Guerrero's guilty plea helps stem the proliferation of digital tools used for repression and advances the security of both Mexican and American citizens.
Grossman added that the office is committed to disrupting malicious cyber activities and mitigating unlawful surveillance.
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Written by Sophie Webster
