NSO Group, Israelite company known for Espía Pegasus software, must pay more than 167 million dollars in punitive damage to a target for a campaign of Computer Piracy and Malware Dissemination against WhatsApp users.
This has been estimated by the jury of a five -year -old judicial battlewhich brought to light the practices of this company and the scope of Espía Pegasus software, which was used for years against journalists, organizations, dissidents, politicians, academics or any objective, systematically violating rights such as privacy.
The Court Case dates back to May 2019 when WhatsApp engineers They discovered A zero day vulnerability on the instant messaging platform owned by Meta. This vulnerability allowed an attacker to install malware on a device with a single call, without the victim had to do nothing but turn on the device.
The surveillance software in question was the infamous Pegasus, developed by NSO Group. There it was found that acted as full -fledged malwaresince it was carefully designed to use zero -day vulnerabilities without user knowledge or interaction, allowing access to all device data, including telephone records, emails, messages and videos, as well as the location. It even allowed external operators to activate the camera and microphone of the phone to make clandestine recordings.
Pegasus committed around 1,400 WhatsApp accounts. Although the company’s engineers solved the ruling in a matter of days stopping the main attack factor, it is suspected that Pegasus used other spyware installation methods to exploit the technologies of other companies and manipulate user devices for the discharge of the malicious code and compromise the terminals.
WhatsApp then filed a lawsuit accusing NSO Group of illegally access your servers and exploit vulnerability In the audio calls of the chat application to attack dissidents, human rights activists and journalists, among others.
WhatsApp spokesman, Zade Alsawah, has assured in a statement that «Our judicial case has made history as the first victory against the illegal spy software that threatens the security and privacy of all… the jury’s decision to force NSO, a well -known foreign merchant of spy software, to pay compensation for damages constitutes a crucial deterrence element for this malicious industry and for fight their illegal acts against US companies and the privacy and security of the people we serve«.
Cybersecurity companies such as those of Citizen Lab, where they have studied the spy software industry for more than a decade, also celebrated the judicial ruling. “This is an incredible moment for those who have been present since the beginning of the research on mercenary spy software”said the company’s principal researcher. «NSO wins many millions of dollars helping dictators to hack people. After years of all kinds of tricks and dilatory tactics, the jury only needed one day of deliberation to reach the heart of the matter: the NSO business is based on hacking US companies … so that dictators can hack the dissidents ».
NSO Group is severely harmed from this trial, although he has already said that he studies an appeal. In addition to the numerous punitive compensation, the most important impact of it is a hard blow to their efforts to hide their commercial activities.
