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May 14, 2019 The instant messaging application WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, said it had detected a vulnerability in its system that allowed hackers to install spyware on some phones and access data on devices. The company confirmed in a statement the information that a few hours earlier it had exclusively published the Financial Times and invited 1.5 billion users worldwide to "update the application to its latest version" and keep the mobile phone operating system as a "protection" measure. WhatsApp experts have specified that at the moment it is not yet possible to establish how many people have been affected, but has assured that the 'victims' have been chosen "specifically", it would not therefore be a large-scale attack. The "spyware" installed in the phones "resembles" the technology developed by the Israeli computer security company NSO Group, bringing it to the top of the list of suspects according to the company. The vulnerability in the system, for which the company released a patch on Monday, was detected only a few days ago and for the moment it is not known how long espionage activities went on. Spyware was installed through a call - even without an answer - made by hackers to the phone in the viewfinder. In many cases the call then disappeared from the chronology.