New Delhi, Sept. 10 -- An Indian-origin cybersecurity professional who once led WhatsApp's security team has taken Meta to court, accusing the company of ignoring major privacy vulnerabilities and retaliating against him for flagging the risks.

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, comes from Attaullah Baig, who joined WhatsApp as head of security in 2021. In his complaint, Baig claims that his warnings about "systemic cybersecurity failures" at the messaging giant were brushed aside, and that his attempts to escalate the matter internally ultimately cost him his job.

According to the lawsuit, Baig discovered during a routine security test that nearly 1,500 WhatsApp engineers had "unrestric...