US COURT ORDERS ISRAELI PEGASUS SPYWARE MAKER TO HAND OVER ITS CODE TO WHATSAPP

Sat 02 March 2024:

A US judge has ordered NSO Group, the creator of one of the most advanced cyberweapons in the world, to give WhatsApp the code for Pegasus and other spyware products, the Guardian reported.

The judge Phyllis Hamilton’s ruling represents a significant legal win for WhatsApp, the messaging app owned by Meta, which has been involved in a legal battle with NSO since 2019. The complaint claimed that spyware from an Israeli company had been used against 1,400 WhatsApp users over the course of two weeks.

NSO’s Pegasus code, as well as the code for other surveillance tools it sells, are considered closely guarded state secrets. The Israeli Ministry of Defense carefully regulates NSO and must study and approve the sale of all licenses to foreign nations.

When it is successfully deployed against a target, NSO’s Pegasus software can hack any mobile phone, gaining unrestricted access to phone calls, emails, photographs, location information and encrypted messages without a user’s knowledge. NSO was blacklisted by the Biden administration in 2021 after it determined the Israeli spyware maker has acted “contrary to the foreign policy and national security interests of the US”.

In reaching her decision, Hamilton considered a plea by NSO to excuse it of all its discovery obligations in the case due to “various US and Israeli restrictions”.

Ultimately, however, she sided with WhatsApp in ordering the company to produce “all relevant spyware” for a period of one year before and after the two weeks in which WhatsApp users were allegedly attacked: from 29 April 2018 to 10 May 2020. NSO must also give WhatsApp information “concerning the full functionality of the relevant spyware”.

Hamilton did, however, decide in NSO’s favor on a different matter: the company will not be forced at this time to divulge the names of its clients or information regarding its server architecture.

“The recent court ruling is an important milestone in our long-running goal of protecting WhatsApp users against unlawful attacks. Spyware companies and other malicious actors need to understand they can be caught and will not be able to ignore the law,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said.

NSO declined to comment on the decision. The litigation is continuing.

NSO sells its spyware to government clients around the world and has said that the agencies who deploy it are responsible for how it is used. While NSO does not disclose the names of its clients, research and media reports over the years have identified Poland, Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, India, Hungary and the United Arab Emirates as among the countries that have previously used the technology to target dissidents, journalists, human rights activists and other members of civil society.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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