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In recent legal news, WhatsApp triumphed over the Israeli spyware company NSO Group in a U.S. court case concerning the misuse of WhatsApp’s platform by NSO’s infamous Pegasus spyware. This tool was deployed to breach the privacy of journalists, activists, and dissidents by hacking into their phones.
Last Friday, a judge from the Northern District of California ruled that NSO Group had indeed violated hacking laws and breached WhatsApp’s service agreement. The company had used WhatsApp to infiltrate over a thousand devices with its spyware. Though the ruling didn’t address the rights of those individuals whose phones were hacked, it signifies a substantial win for technology firms determined to safeguard their platforms from abusive entities that target their users.
Prominent tech companies like Apple and Amazon also supported WhatsApp in this legal battle, marking another victory for them as well.
Judge Phyllis Hamilton declared, “The court finds no merit in the arguments raised” by NSO Group. The summary judgment now narrows the focus of the impending trial solely to the issue of damages, bypassing any debate over NSO’s liability.
WhatsApp expressed its satisfaction with the decision: “After five years of litigation, we’re grateful for today’s decision,” they stated. “NSO can no longer avoid accountability for their unlawful attacks on WhatsApp, journalists, human rights activists, and civil society.”
NSO Group, however, did not immediately comment following the ruling.
Pegasus, notorious for its capabilities, can access encrypted messages on a phone, control its camera and microphone remotely, and pinpoint its location. Its deployment has been linked to human rights violations, leading the U.S. Department of Commerce to blacklist the company.
This court case emerged after a 2019 report from the Financial Times coincided with WhatsApp’s revelation that its services had been compromised by NSO and Pegasus.
In its findings, the court noted that NSO did not challenge the assertion that it had “reverse-engineered and/or decompiled the WhatsApp software” to hack phones. NSO suggested this might have occurred before it agreed to WhatsApp’s terms of service. Yet, the judge countered that “common sense dictates that [NSO] must have first gained access” to the software, offering “no plausible explanation” for how this could have happened without agreements to the terms of service. The court ruled in favor of WhatsApp’s position that NSO had breached both federal and state hacking laws.
Furthermore, the judge criticized NSO for its “repeated failure to produce relevant discovery,” including materials related to the Pegasus source code.
“This ruling sets a precedent that will reverberate for years,” observed John Scott-Railton, a researcher with the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, who has delved into Pegasus’s applications.
“This is the most-watched case about mercenary spyware, and it’s garnered everyone’s attention. I foresee this having a chilling effect on similar dubious spyware firms eyeing the U.S. market, and dampening investors’ enthusiasm for these hacking ventures,” he added.
