On Friday, WhatsApp celebrated a significant legal victory over the NSO Group, the developer of the Pegasus spyware. A judge in a US District Court ruled in favor of the Meta-owned messaging platform, holding the Israeli company responsible for hacking the devices of 1,400 users and infecting them with spyware through WhatsApp’s servers. The ruling determined that the NSO Group had violated both federal hacking laws and the laws of the State of California, in addition to breaching WhatsApp’s terms of service.
WhatsApp Secures Legal Victory Against NSO Group
Judge Phyllis Hamilton, presiding over the case, granted WhatsApp’s motion for summary judgment against the NSO Group, confirming that the company had transgressed the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and California’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA).
A new trial is scheduled for March 2025 to determine the damages owed by the NSO Group to WhatsApp. Judge Hamilton also requested both parties inform the court by January 17, 2025, regarding any expert motions that require resolution prior to the damages trial.
Will Cathcart, Head of WhatsApp, described the ruling as “a huge win for privacy” in a post on Threads. He emphasized that the company has spent five years pursuing the case, adamant that spyware firms should not evade responsibility for their illegal practices. “Surveillance companies should be on notice that illegal spying will not be tolerated,” he stated.
This decision follows nearly two years after the US Supreme Court allowed WhatsApp to initiate a lawsuit against the NSO Group, which was alleged to have exploited a bug in the messaging app to deploy the Pegasus spyware. WhatsApp has claimed that this spyware was installed unlawfully, targeting 1,400 individuals, including journalists, politicians, and human rights advocates.
In her ruling, Judge Hamilton noted that the NSO Group had consistently failed to provide WhatsApp with the source code of its spyware, a significant factor that led to the sanctions in favor of the messaging platform. Remarkably, the Israeli firm only disclosed the source code of Pegasus to a single Israeli citizen within the country. Hamilton criticized this action, labeling it as “simply impracticable.”
WhatsApp initially filed the lawsuit against the NSO Group in 2019, seeking an injunction and damages. At that time, the NSO Group maintained that Pegasus was developed to assist in capturing terrorists and serious criminals, focusing on aiding law enforcement and intelligence agencies in crime prevention and national security efforts.
