Bishop from Togo among 1,400 individuals alerted by WhatsApp to malware attack

A prominent Catholic bishop and a priest in Togo have been told they were targeted by spyware made by the private surveillance firm NSO Group, in the first known case of its kind involving members of the clergy.

A joint investigation by the Guardian and the French newspaper Le Monde can reveal that Bishop Benoît Alowonou and five other critics of Togo’s repressive government were alerted by WhatsApp last year that their mobile phones had been targeted with the spying technology.