A federal jury on Tuesday decided that NSO Group should pay meta owned by WhatsApp WhatsApp Approximately $ 168 million In monetary losses, more than four months after the federal judge ruled that the Israeli company violated US laws using WhatsApp servers to deploy Pegasus Spyware, focusing on more than 1400 people worldwide.
WhatsApp originally submitted lawsuit Against NSO Group in 2019, accusing the latter to use Pegasus for orientation to journalists, human rights defenders and political dissidents.
Court documents published as part of the trial disclosed This 456 Mexicans were sent during the company and then 100 victims in India, 82 in Bahrain, 69 in Morocco and 58 in Pakistan. A total of 51 different countries were aimed at a total.
The attacks used the vulnerability of the zero day in the voice call of WhatsApp (Cve-2019-3568CVSS assessment: 9.8) to cause spyware deployment.
In the ruling issued in December 2024, US District Judge Philis J. Hamilton noted This Pegasus was sent through the Californian WhatsApp servers 43 times during the corresponding period of May 2019.
“Our case against the developer Spyfore NSO has entered the story when the court found that they violated both federal and state laws in the US in December,” Will Katkart, head of WhatsApp in Meta, – Note In a statement about X.
“And today the verdict for the Punning Punishment of the NSA is the most important deterrent for spyware against their illegal acts aimed at US companies and our users worldwide.”
The cat has added the next step of the company to ensure the court ruling, to prevent the NSO not oriented again on WhatsApp, adding that it will donate digital rights organizations working to protect people from such attacks around the world.
In addition to $ 167 254,000 for punitive losses, the jury has determined that the NSO group should pay WhatsApp 444 719 for the compensation losses for the significant efforts that WhatsApp engineers are made to block the attack vectors.
Development is a major victory for supporters of privacy and human rights organizations who have repeatedly called on NSO groups for licensing their powerful software to observe customers for civil society members.
While NSO Group tried to avoid responsibility, saying that it has no visibility in what his customers made of Pegasus, Judge Hamilton noted that “his intention would be to help his customers fight terrorism and exploitation of children, and on the other hand, he has nothing to do with Support ”.
“NSO has been forced to admit that it is holding tens of millions of dollars annually to develop malware methods, including through instant messages, browsers and operating systems, and that his spy software is capable of threatening the iOS or Android device so far,” meta “meta”, meta ” – Note.
In a statement shared with The court news and PoliticsNSO Group has stated that its technology plays a decisive role in preventing serious crimes and terrorism, and that it intends to continue relevant legal means. The company was sanctioned The US government in 2021 for participating in the “malicious cyber activity”.
Apple who filed a similar claim against NSO Group, dive This is in September 2024, saying that continuing it could detect tangible details of its security program.
