Attaullah Baig, former head of safety for WhatsApp, has filed a lawsuit in opposition to Meta and a number of other of the corporate’s prime executives, accusing them of failing to handle essential cybersecurity failures and retaliating in opposition to him when he tried to get them fastened.
Baig joined WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, in 2021, and served as head of safety till he was terminated in February 2025 for poor efficiency. Previous to WhatsApp, he held cybersecurity-related roles at PayPal and Capital One.
He has now filed a whistleblower lawsuit below the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). The previous safety chief claims the social media large really terminated him over his repeated makes an attempt to get the corporate to resolve severe cybersecurity points.
Baig claims he found that a whole bunch of engineers had unrestricted entry to WhatsApp person information with out a legitimate motive. He additionally alleges that the corporate failed to handle a big quantity of account takeovers.
Meta can be accused of violating a 2020 FTC privateness order requiring it to trace and monitor person information entry, and of failing to reveal the problems to the SEC, which might represent securities fraud.
The ex-security chief claims he made quite a few makes an attempt to get the eye of Meta executives, together with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, pressuring them to get the problems addressed, however as an alternative of doing in order that they began retaliating in opposition to him, together with by way of unfavourable efficiency opinions, micromanagement, and the cancellation of security measures his workforce had developed.
Baig was in the end terminated a number of months after he personally reported Meta’s alleged cybersecurity deficiencies to the SEC.
The lawsuit names Zuckerberg. It additionally names a number of different executives, together with VP and Head of WhatsApp Will Cathcart, Head of Engineering for WhatsApp Nitin Gupta, and Pinaki Mukerji and Mark Tsimelzon, former and present administrators of engineering at WhatsApp.Commercial. Scroll to proceed studying.
Baig is demanding a jury trial and desires Meta to reinstate him, award backpay, and compensate him for authorized charges, emotional misery, and psychological anguish.
Andy Stone, communications director at Meta, responded to the lawsuit with a message posted on X, saying, “Sadly this can be a acquainted playbook wherein a former worker is dismissed for poor efficiency after which goes public with distorted claims that misrepresent the continued onerous work of our workforce.”
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