A recent ruling from the US court comes in as a noteworthy setback for the NSO Group, holding it responsible for meddling with Meta’s WhatsApp. The decision arrived following NSO’s failure to provide the complete source code for its notorious Pegasus spyware.
US Court Ruling Held NSO Group Liable For Hacking WhatsApp
Meta’s WhatsApp has finally achieved a huge win that may help it regain its credibility among users. In a recent US court ruling, Israel’s NSO Group was deemed liable for hacking into WhatsApp for spyware infiltration.
According to the verdict from US District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton, the NSO Group breached Meta’s WhatsApp servers several times.
The limited evidentiary record before the court does show that defendants’ Pegasus code was sent through plaintiffs’ California-based servers 43 times during the relevant time period in May 2019… defendants “caused a digital transmission to enter California, which then effectuated a breaking and entering of a server in California.”
Following the lawsuit, the Court ruled that the NSO Group must share the Pegasus malware code with WhatsApp in early 2024. However, it now seems that NSO didn’t comply with the order while defending its activities, citing security reasons.
Meta filed the lawsuit against NSO Group in 2019 after the latter was detected exploiting a WhatsApp vulnerability, CVE-2019-3568, to deploy Pegasus spyware. While Meta patched the vulnerability, it claimed that NSO Group continued to exploit WhatsApp to distribute Pegasus malware on target devices.
Since then, the two parties have been at war, alleging each other of various malicious activities. For instance, in 2020, NSO revealed Meta’s (then Facebook) attempt to buy the Pegasus spyware.
Nonetheless, the firm is already infamous for facilitating authoritarian regimes in monitoring opposing voices and surveilling citizens. Although NSO Group tries hard to keep its clients’ details secret, research entities, such as CitizenLab, have shared multiple reports of Pegasus being used against journalists, activities, and even some government officials in repressive regions.
Pegasus is a sneaky spyware from Israeli-based NSO Group that ensures persistent explicit access to the target devices. Removing this malware is almost impossible, even with the most robust anti-malware solutions. Its stealth activities have made this spyware a favorite for global surveilling authorities.
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