US Court Finds NSO Liable For Hacking Of WhatsApp Using Pegasus Malware
Live LawIn a summary judgment, Judge Phyllis Hamilton of the US District Court in Oakland, Northern District of California has found Israeli-mercenary's surveillance firm NSO Group Technologies liable for the hacking of Meta's Whatsapp through its state-of-the-art military-grade malware Pegasus. The Court has found that NSO violated the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act, and Comprehensive Computer Data Access & Fraud Act by sending malicious messages through WhatsApp servers to hack users. Defendants appear to fully acknowledge that the WIS sent messages through WhatsApp servers that caused Pegasus to be installed on target users' devices and that the WIS was then able to obtain protected information by having it sent from the target users, through the WhatApp servers, and back to the WIS.defendants argue that Pegasus was operated by their clients, and thus defendants did not collect any information. NSO Group's flagship spyware Pegasus is known to be one of the most sophisticated spyware which can infiltrate both iOS and Android devices as per the University of Toronto's cybersecurity research laboratory Citizen Lab.