WhatsApp Catches Italian Spyware Firm SIO Building Fake Version of Its App to Hack iPhones

WhatsApp has notified approximately 200 users, primarily in Italy, that they were deceived into installing a counterfeit version of the messaging app that was actually government-grade spyware, The Next Web reported Wednesday. The fake application was built by SIO, an Italian surveillance technology company that develops spyware for law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The malicious app was distributed through SIO's subsidiary ASIGINT and was designed to closely mimic the legitimate WhatsApp interface while secretly harvesting data from infected devices. The revelation adds SIO to a growing list of commercial spyware vendors caught deploying tools against civilian targets. The NSO Group, maker of Pegasus, was the most prominent early example, but the industry has expanded significantly, with dozens of companies across Europe, Israel, and Asia now selling intrusion tools to government clients. Commercial spyware typically targets encrypted communications, circumventing end-to-end encryption by gaining access to a device before messages are encrypted or after they are decrypted -- a technique sometimes called lawful interception or, more critically, a device-level hack. WhatsApp, owned by Meta, has been unusually aggressive in pursuing legal action and public disclosure against spyware vendors. The company sued NSO Group in 2019 and has continued to notify users when it detects surveillance operations targeting its platform. The disclosure is likely to intensify scrutiny of Italy's domestic surveillance industry and the regulatory environment governing the sale and deployment of spyware within EU member states, where data protection rules under GDPR create at least theoretical constraints on such operations. The Next Web reported the SIO disclosure on April 1, 2026.