A U.S. judge ruled in favor of Meta Platforms’.Israel’s NSO Group is being accused of exploiting a bug in the messaging app to install spy software that allows unauthorized surveillance.
WhatsApp in a lawsuit has made the accusations.
A motion was granted by U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton via WhatsApp in Oakland. The judge held NSO liable for hacking and breach of contract.
WhatsApp filed suit accusing NSO Group of breaking a federal anti-hacking law in 2019. The company’s flagship custom malware, Pegasus, was used on human rights advocates and journalists in a sweeping attack. These allegations were made at that time, and so the landmark case began. The company was accused of infecting and surveilling the phones of 1,400 people over a two-week period in May 2019 via its notorious Pegasus software.
How Pegasus Redefined Surveillance
NSO, an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm, developed Pegasus (spyware). It is used for eavesdropping on mobile phones. They are also used for harvesting data. The spyware has been highly controversial. But the group claims its product is sold to government security and law enforcement agencies and only to assist rescue operations and battle criminals.
Pegasus is not only controversial but also very expensive.It can infect a device via a message or a call through WhatsApp or another service.The spyware can self-install if the messages are deleted by a user or if a user ignores the call. Once inside a device, Pegasus gains full access to emails, SMS, messages, photos, contacts, calendars, GPS, etc. We can say that Pegasus gains full control of any apps and data the phone contains.
Pegasus uses ‘jailbreaking’ and rooting techniques to hack iPhones and Androids. Thus the security controls on the phone are essentially disabled.It has been classified as a weapon in Israel. As mentioned above, in 2019, Facebook (now Meta Platforms) sued NSO Group under the United States Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In 2021 Apple also sued. Also, the former U.S. President, Joe Biden, blacklisted the company. He made it illegal for U.S. firms to sell technology to NSO Group. News came out that governments across the world used the Israeli NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to spy on human rights activists, journalists, and even heads of state in 2021. A list of over fifty thousand phone numbers targeted for surveillance by Pegasus’ customers was leaked. Although Pegasus was originally developed to target terrorists and criminals, the leaked list proves that the spyware has been widely misused.
The NSO Group has previously denied wrongdoing. They said that their products are used to fight crime and terrorism.Thus they did not return a request for comment immediately on Friday evening.
WhatsApp’s head, Will Cathcart,, said the ruling is a win for privacy. In a social media post, Cathcart also said that they had spent five years presenting their case. This was just because they firmly believed that spyware companies could not hide behind immunity. They couldn’t avoid accountability for their unlawful actions.
John Scott-Railton, a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, said, “Friday’s ruling in favor of WhatsApp “sets a precedent that will be cited for years to come.'” He has investigated the use of NSO Group’s spyware.
