Meta has won its 2019 lawsuit against Israeli spyware vendor NSO Group. The latter allegedly exploited a zero-day vulnerability to deliver spyware to at least 1,400 WhatsApp users. A jury has ordered NSO Group to pay Meta more than $167 million for the hacking, in addition to over $440,000 in compensatory damages.
Collecting the awarded damages isn’t easy for Meta, though. NSO has denied any wrongdoing in the case, claiming that the company believes its technology “plays a critical role in preventing serious crime and terrorism and is deployed responsibly by authorised government agencies,” as reported by SecurityWeek. To NSO, the verdict is just another step in a “lengthy judicial process,” and it plans to pursue further proceedings and an appeal.
The spyware used in the case was NSO’s flagship product, Pegasus. The tool is marketed as a legitimate surveillance tool to aid government and law enforcement agencies in fighting terrorism, organised crime, and more. That said, authoritarian governments often use it to spy on journalists, activists, and political opponents, among other targets.
NSO’s defence remains that it’s not responsible for how its customers use its products, and hence, not liable to pay damages for any WhatsApp hacking. Meta also pointed out that “NSO was forced to admit that it spends tens of millions of dollars annually to develop malware installation methods, including through instant messaging, browsers, and operating systems, and that its spyware is capable of compromising iOS or Android devices to this day.”
Meta isn’t stopping at the judgment either. The company plans to continue going after other spyware vendors “indiscriminately targeting people around the world.” WhatsApp wasn’t NSO’s only target, meaning this is an industry-wide threat, and the social media giant believes that these spyware are a threat to the entire end-to-end encrypted messaging app ecosystem, including other apps like Signal.
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