Washington: WhatsApp is suing Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group, accusing it of helping government spies break into the phones of roughly 1400 users across four continents in a hacking spree whose targets included diplomats, political dissidents, journalists and senior government officials.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco, messaging service WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, accused NSO of facilitating government hacking sprees in 20 countries. Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were the only countries identified.

WhatsApp is suing the Israeli hacker-for-hire company NSO Group for allegedly targeting some 1400 users with highly sophisticated spyware. Credit:AP

WhatsApp said in a statement that 100 civil society members had been targeted, and called it “an unmistakable pattern of abuse.”

WhatsApp said the attack exploited its video calling system in order to send malware to the mobile devices of a number of users. The malware would allow NSO's clients - said to be governments and intelligence organisations - to secretly spy on a phone's owner, opening their digital lives up to official scrutiny.