Federal Judge Grants Warrant to Spyware Manufacturer NSO Stop using your Pegasus app to target or infect WhatsApp users.
resolutionissued Friday by Phyllis J. Hamilton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California grants a permanent injunction sought by WhatsApp owner Meta in a case brought against NSO. in 2019. The lawsuit alleged that Meta caught NSO trying to secretly infect about 1,400 cellphones with Pegasus, many of which belonged to lawyers, journalists, human rights activists, political dissidents, diplomats and high-ranking foreign government officials. As part of the campaign, NSO created fake WhatsApp accounts and targeted meta infrastructure. The suit sought monetary damages and an injunction against the practice.
Setting a precedent
Friday's ruling directs NSO to permanently stop targeting WhatsApp users in an attempt to infect their devices, as well as intercepting WhatsApp messages that are encrypted using open source code. Signal protocol. Hamilton also ruled that NSO must delete all data obtained from the attack on WhatsApp users.
NSO argued that such a decision would “force NSO to go out of business” because Pegasus is its “flagship product.” Hamilton ruled that the harm that Pegasus caused Meta outweighed any such considerations.
“In the Court's view, any business that deals with users' personal information and invests resources in ways to encrypt that personal information is harmed by unauthorized access to that personal information—and it is more than just reputational harm, it is harm to the business,” Hamilton wrote. “Essentially, part of what companies like Whatsapp 'sell' is information privacy, and any unauthorized access is an interference with that sale. Defendants' conduct is intended to undermine one of the purposes of the service offered by plaintiffs, which constitutes a direct harm.”
