Khaberni - An American judge issued a decree preventing the Israeli NSO company from targeting WhatsApp users, but reduced the compensation of $168 million USD in the trial to only $4 million.
U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled that the behavior of the NSO Group did not rise to the "extremely serious" level necessary to support jury accounts regarding financial penalties.
In the ruling, she said that the court "concluded that the defendants' conduct causes irreparable harm, and given the ongoing nature of this behavior," she granted Meta, the owner of WhatsApp, a judicial order to stop the spying techniques used by the NSO Group on the messaging service.
Will Cathcart, CEO of WhatsApp, stated in a statement: "Today’s ruling prevents NSO, the spyware manufacturer, from again targeting WhatsApp and our global users."
He added: "We commend this decision, which comes after six years of litigation to hold NSO accountable for targeting members of civil society."
The trial evidence showed that the NSO Group conducted reverse engineering of WhatsApp code to install spyware to covertly target users, according to the ruling.
The court concluded that the spyware was redesigned repeatedly to avoid detection and bypass security fixes in WhatsApp.
The lawsuit, filed in late 2019, accused the NSO Group of cyber spying on journalists, lawyers, human rights activists, and others using the encrypted messaging service.
However, the court ruled that the previous compensatory ruling of $168 million issued in favor of Meta earlier this year was excessive.
The court wrote in its ruling, "There have not yet been enough cases concerning illegal electronic surveillance in the era of smartphones for the court to conclude that the defendants’ conduct was 'extremely atrocious'."
Over time, a common social consensus may emerge regarding the acceptability of the defendants' behavior."
It is noted that the NSO Group was founded in 2010 by Israelis Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie and is based in Herzliya, Israel, a high-tech hub near Tel Aviv.
TechCrunch reported on Friday that an American investment group has acquired a controlling stake in NSO Group.
The Israeli company produces "Pegasus," a highly invasive hacking software, said to be capable of activating a mobile phone's camera and microphone and accessing its data, effectively turning the phone into a portable spying tool.
The suit filed in a federal court in California claimed that NSO tried to infect approximately 1400 'target devices' with malware to steal valuable information.
Infecting smartphones or other devices used for WhatsApp messages would allow access to the content of encrypted messages during transmission after decryption.
The complaint noted that the attackers "developed software that enabled them to mimic legitimate WhatsApp network traffic to transmit malware" to take control of the devices.
Independent experts have noted that this software is used by countries, some of which have a poor human rights record.
The "NSO Group" confirmed that it licenses its software only to governments for combating crime and terrorism.
