Netanyahu Aide's WhatsApp Linked to UAE Firm, Raising Security Concerns

A significant security lapse has emerged concerning Jonathan Urikh, a close advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Urikh connected his professional WhatsApp account to an external management service, "ultramsg," based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This connection reportedly granted the service unrestricted, unencrypted access to all sensitive messages and communications passing through the account, according to a report by "Calcalist."

The service, operating from Dubai, was granted broad permission to extract the data. The core of the security concern lies in the UAE's legal framework, which differs from Western privacy laws. Emirati authorities can access such data in real-time without requiring a court order or user notification. Furthermore, ultramsg's terms of service stipulate that data is retained on their servers for 120 days, even if automatically deleted from the user's device.

The founder of ultramsg, known only as "Ahmed Kumar," has an obscure identity with no substantial digital footprint, leading to suspicions that it may be an alias. This issue surfaced following a previous incident last week where Urikh developed an AI tool, based on the Claude model, to monitor media mentions of the Netanyahus. He uploaded the sensitive code for this system to GitHub, inadvertently exposing internal WhatsApp group tokens and unique identifiers.

Although his permissions were restricted after media inquiries, the code had already leaked online, highlighting a major security vulnerability surrounding the device of an individual in constant communication with the Prime Minister. This latest security concern follows a separate controversy in August, when Urikh threatened legal action against the newspaper "Israel Hayom" over a headline alleging he leaked classified information to Qatar. Urikh vehemently denied these claims, calling them libelous and false, and stated he never transferred classified information to Qatar or faced investigation for it.