WhatsApp has just won a major legal battle in its long-standing case against NSO Group, the Israeli company behind the controversial Pegasus spyware. On Friday, a U.S. federal judge ruled that NSO violated U.S. laws by hacking into WhatsApp’s servers to target over 1,400 phones back in 2019, The Washington Post reported.
Let’s rewind a bit. In 2019, WhatsApp sued NSO Group, accusing it of using a vulnerability in the app to secretly install Pegasus spyware. The targets of NSO Group’s spyware attacks, which was recently revealed in a lawsuit brought by WhatsApp, were journalists, human rights activists, and political dissidents. This revelation contradicted NSO’s argument that its spyware was exclusively sold to governments for legitimate purposes like tracking terrorists and combatting serious crimes.
However, a court ruled that NSO had violated the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, dealing a significant blow to the spyware firm. WhatsApp is not only seeking damages but also an injunction to prevent any further use of NSO’s spyware.
The recent ruling grants WhatsApp a motion for summary judgment, meaning the court agrees that NSO is liable for hacking. What’s next? The case now moves to trial to decide how much NSO should pay in damages.
But that’s not all. The court also sanctioned NSO for refusing to share the source code of its spyware during the discovery process. Penalties for that will be determined later.
In a statement, Carl Woog, a WhatsApp spokesperson, highlighted the importance of the ruling: “This decision makes it clear that spyware companies can’t avoid accountability for their unlawful attacks on WhatsApp, journalists, and civil society.”
