A jury has ruled that Israeli company NSO Group, the maker of the infamous Pegasus spyware, must pay Meta✴ Platforms $167 million in damages. The ruling is a major victory for Meta✴ after a years-long legal battle with the company, which used the WhatsApp messaging app to distribute its malware.
Источник изображения: Mariia shalabeeeva / Unsplash
Meta✴ filed a lawsuit against NSO Group back in 2019. At the time, Meta✴ claimed that the company’s WhatsApp messenger was used to distribute the Pegasus malware, which killed more than 1,400 people in 20 countries, including journalists and human rights activists. The lawsuit said that the “highly sophisticated cyberattack” was spreading malware through video calls, even if they were unanswered. Last year, a judge sided with the social media giant and found the Israeli company in violation of current US law.
The jury spent a week deciding how much damages NSO Group will have to pay Meta✴. The jury awarded Meta✴ $444,719 in damages and $167,254,000 in punitive damages. Commenting on the matter, Carl Woog, WhatsApp’s vice president of public affairs, called the court’s verdict “a major deterrent for the malware industry in the fight against illegal activities that target American companies and people’s privacy and security.”
NSO Group describes itself as a “cyber intelligence” company. In court, a company representative argued that Pegasus could not be used on smartphones with US phone numbers. The developer’s lawyers also argued that Pegasus did not harm WhatsApp in any way, but they failed to convince the jury of this. After the verdict, a representative for NSO Group said the court’s decision was “another step in a long legal process,” adding that the company intends to pursue “further proceedings” or appeal.
«”We firmly believe that our technology plays an important role in preventing serious crime and terrorism. It is used responsibly by authorized government agencies. This view, supported by extensive real-world evidence and numerous security operations that have saved many lives, including American lives, was excluded from consideration by the jury in this case,” said Gil Lainer, a spokesman for NSO Group.
In turn, Carl Woog said that he knows that Meta✴ has a “long way to go” to recover damages from NSO. He also confirmed his intention to seek a court order that would prohibit NSO from using WhatsApp to distribute malware in the future.