A California court has ruled that the Israeli company NSO, which develops the controversial Pegasus spyware, is responsible for the mass hacking of WhatsApp accounts in 2019. The hack, which was revealed by Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, allowed thousands of users to be tracked, including journalists, social activists and dissidents, according to a report in the British newspaper The Guardian.
The ruling is a significant victory for Meta in the global fight against the spyware industry. The judge ruled that NSO had violated federal and state laws in the United States related to computer fraud and that the company must pay damages to WhatsApp.
In addition, the company will have to provide WhatsApp with the source code of the Pegasus spyware, a move that will make it difficult for it to carry out similar actions in the future. The judge in the ruling, Phyllis Hamilton, found that the company violated the fraud and misuse laws of the U.S. federal and state computers, as well as WhatsApp's own terms of service.
NSO Group has repeatedly claimed that its government customers control the use of Pegasus and are responsible for the hacking carried out through it, but documents filed as part of the lawsuit showed that this was not true. It was proven that the company was the party that "installs and produces" information using Pegasus, which was used to penetrate not only WhatsApp but also iPhones to extract photos, emails, and text messages.
Pegasus, which is considered one of the most advanced spyware in the world, allows penetration into cellular devices without the user's knowledge. It has been used for illegal espionage purposes in many countries, and has become a symbol of the misuse of surveillance technologies. The Biden administration blacklisted NSO Group back in 2021 and banned U.S. government agencies from purchasing its products.
* Channel 14 contributed to this article.
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