The Israeli company NSO Group was sentenced on Tuesday by a jury of Oakland (California) to pay almost $ 168 million in damage to the goal for piracy through WhatsApp messages. He took five and a half years in this procedure to succeed, after having challenged the legality of a trial even before the Supreme Court.
In detail, the jurors granted goal 444,719 for repairs and 167.25 million punitive damages. Goal accused NSO of having placed, in 2018 and 2019, its Pegasus Spy software in approximately 1,400 mobile phones through WhatsApp, without the knowledge of messaging officials.
The Israeli company has allowed one of its customers to spy on the exchanges and personal data of the owners of these smartphones. Meta, who was called Facebook at that time, detected the maneuver, established additional protections to avoid it and informed the facts to the authorities.
A “first victory”
“Today’s verdict is an important step for the protection of personal data and security,” Meta said in a press release published on his site.
The imposition of damage will act on “crucial deterrence” against “illegal acts” aimed at companies and individuals, according to goal. Requested by AFP, NSO Group suggested that this decision appealed, evoking “an additional chapter of an long judicial process.” In the case of the final conviction and the execution of the sentence, this file could give a very hard financial blow to the NSO, whose annual billing was estimated, in 2021, in 230 million dollars.
An article on the Wall Street Journal had revealed that the piracy of telephones by WhatsApp had been carried out on behalf of the European states, which monitored a suspect in relation to the group of the Islamic State, suspected of preparing an attack at the time of Christmas holidays.
According to the researchers, cited by The Daily, publicly revealing surveillance and warning individually to the 1,400 people in a row, whose main suspect had slowed down the progress of the investigation.
NSO has been accused, for several years, of having allowed surveillance, by governments, activists, activists, journalists and opponents. In July 2021, a coordinated survey of various media had revealed a list of more than 50,000 names of people who have probably been monitored through Pegasus.
Source: BFM TV
