A court in the USA has ordered the tech company NSO Group Technologies to stop attacking the messenger service WhatsApp. According to the manufacturer of the surveillance software “Pegasus”, this decision endangers the company’s business operations.
In the ruling announced last Friday, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton issued a permanent injunction prohibiting NSO Group from targeting WhatsApp users. The case was heard in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland (case no. 19-CV-07123). At the same time, the court reduced the amount of damages awarded to WhatsApp parent company Meta from 167 to “only” four million US dollars. Judge Hamilton justified the decision by saying that NSO Group’s conduct was not to be classified as “particularly serious” and therefore did not justify such high damages.
Despite the reduction of the fine, WhatsApp officials were pleased with the judge’s ruling. “Today’s ruling prohibits spyware manufacturer NSO from ever targeting WhatsApp and our global users again,” WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart said in a statement. “We welcome this decision, made after six years of litigation to hold NSO accountable for monitoring members of civil society.”
Long-standing dispute in court
The legal dispute has been occupying courts for many years. In a lawsuit filed in October 2019, WhatsApp’s parent company Meta accused NSO Group of violating various laws when installing the Pegasus spyware. For example, NSO Group is said to have illegally accessed WhatsApp servers in early 2019, enabling the surveillance of 1,400 people, including journalists and human rights activists.
In 2020, a judge rejected NSO Group’s request for some form of immunity. The company appealed against this decision. However, an appeals court upheld the decision in 2021. At the beginning of 2023, the justices of the US Supreme Court finally rejected NSO Group’s appeal. In it, the company had argued that it was immune to a lawsuit because it had acted as an agent for unidentified foreign governments when installing the spyware.
The case eventually ended up in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. At the end of February 2024, the judge in charge ruled that NSO Group must hand over the source code of the Pegasus spyware. Shortly before the turn of the year, the court finally granted WhatsApp’s application. At the beginning of May, a jury finally awarded Meta more than 167 million US dollars in damages. The NSO Group appealed against this and demanded a re-order of the proceedings or a reduction of the amount of damages. At least the reduction has been achieved by NSO Group.
Challenge for NSO Group
Nevertheless, the company, which was recently taken over by a US investor group, is unlikely to be satisfied. Rather, the injunction to stop taking action against WhatsApp is likely to be a challenge for NSO Group, suspects the Reuters news agency. In the proceedings, the company had argued that the requested injunction would “jeopardize the entire NSO company” and “put NSO out of business” because “Pegasus is NSO’s flagship product,” the ruling said.
NSO Group argues that the Pegasus software supports law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies in fighting crime and protecting national security, and is intended to help apprehend terrorists, pedophiles and serious criminals. However, it is also a fact that numerous governments around the world have used the Pegasus spyware for political surveillance in recent years, such as in Mexico to spy on journalists, human rights activists and anti-corruption fighters.
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