WhatsApp wins big, US court holds NSO Group responsible in Pegasus case
In an important decision on Friday, the United States District Court held Israeli technology company NSO Group responsible for targeting the devices of 1400 WhatsApp users. NSO Group is the maker of Pegasus spyware which its government clients allegedly used to infect the devices of many WhatsApp users. Let's know the whole case.
Staff Editor 
WhatsApp has won a major legal victory against NSO Group Technologies, the Israeli company behind the controversial Pegasus spyware, late on Friday (December 20). The decision is a major milestone in a high-profile lawsuit filed by Meta's messaging app in the US in 2019. The lawsuit accused NSO Group of using Pegasus to infect and monitor the phones of 1,400 individuals, including journalists, human rights activists and government officials, during a two-week period in May 2019. The spyware, notorious for its invasive capabilities, was used to extract sensitive data from targets through WhatsApp. The judge ruled in favor of WhatsApp US District Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled in favor of WhatsApp, finding that NSO Group had violated state and federal hacking laws as well as WhatsApp's terms of service. The court also determined that NSO Group violated the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a major setback for the spyware maker.
In his ruling, Hamilton said NSO Group had obstructed the legal process by not providing the spyware's source code to WhatsApp, even though it was ordered to do so by early 2024. Instead, the company made the code available only in Israel and limited its review to Israeli citizens, a situation the judge called "absolutely impractical."
NSO Group will now face a jury trial in March 2025 to decide the damages to be awarded to WhatsApp.
Pegasus and NSO Group under scrutiny
NSO Group has long claimed that its spyware is used only by government clients for national security purposes. However, documents filed in the case revealed the opposite. The court found evidence that the NSO Group directly operated Pegasus, installed the spyware, and extracted data, including photos, emails, and texts, from both WhatsApp and iPhones.
