The WhatsApp messenger announced a legal victory over the developer of spyware Pegasus, represented by the Israeli company NSO Group Technologies. We are talking about a trial in which the messenger owned by Meta✴ Platforms accused an Israeli software developer of spying on the smartphones of 1,400 people over two weeks in May 2019.
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During the hearing of the case, Judge Phyllis Hamilton found that NSO Group violated US federal information security laws, as well as the rules for using the WhatsApp messenger. In March next year, the NSO Group case will be heard by a jury to determine the extent of the damage caused to WhatsApp by the Pegasus spyware.
«After five years of litigation, we are grateful for today’s decision. NSO will no longer be able to escape responsibility for unlawful attacks on WhatsApp, journalists, human rights defenders and civil society. “With this ruling, companies engaged in espionage will be warned that their illegal activities will not go unchecked,” WhatsApp said in a statement.
The court ruled that NSO Group violated US law and also delayed the trial. Earlier this year, Hamilton obliged the Israeli company to provide WhatsApp with the source code of its spyware. The judge’s latest ruling states that NSO Group repeatedly ignored the court’s demands, which was the main reason for WhatsApp’s claim. In fact, NSO Group provided the Pegasus source code in Israel to a citizen of that country, which did not satisfy the court, since the case was heard in California.
Representatives of NSO Group have repeatedly stated that the company’s government clients use Pegasus software at their own discretion and that they are responsible for the hacker attacks carried out. However, during the investigation it was found that this was not the case. The court found that NSO Group is the party that “installs and extracts” information using Pegasus, which is used to spy on WhatsApp users as well as iPhone owners. The court also found that the victims of the hack included senior government officials, journalists, human rights activists, political dissidents and diplomats.