The cyber-threat intelligence market in South-East Asia and Indonesia is animated by several market players from the U.S., Europe, and especially Israel, such as Quadream, ULTRA led by Zvi Fischler; NSO Group, Intellexa; or the Israeli-American, Verint.
On October 29, 2019, WhatsApp filed a lawsuit in the northern district court of California against the NSO Group. The Meta subsidiary had accused the Israeli group of having used its servers and computer systems to operate phone hacks. The lawsuit raised an alarm among the Singaporeans, one of their loyal customers, which is now looking for other potential providers.
Later in December 2019, Cypriot police also arrested Tal Dilian, the former partner of NSO Group, who founded Intellexa, a spy product able to decrypt the messages; and WiSpear, a surveillance van capable of intercepting smartphone chat and social messaging from kilometers away.
Dilian showed in his video interview with Forbes magazine how his van and equipment worth US$9 million could take control of a Huawei mobile phone belonging to his colleague, located 200 meters away. His WhatsApp account then appeared on the van’s monitor screen. Dilian stated that he has his office in Indonesia and participated in a WiFi interception demo project in the archipelago. The project in question maybe none other than the US$10 million projects proposed by an Israeli cyber-intelligence start-up, Magen, to the Indonesian government in 2017. Magen was founded by Nir Barak, who is also the CEO of Kela Israeli Intelligence.
In 2018, Philippe Hababou Solomon, a Franco-Israeli consultant/businessman with a strong network of African leaders, made a trip accompanied by the controversial Alexandre Benalla and a group of the Indonesian delegation to Turkey. The discussion revolves around a project to create Indonesian cyber academies to train local Indonesian authorities on the subject.
Currently, the Indonesian government relies on its various intelligence partners, such as Verint and Wintego, the company led by Nhevo Kaufman, which specializes in man-in-the-middle attacks (MITM) and the interceptions on the WhatsApp platform.
