US Judge Blocks NSO Group from Targeting WhatsApp Users Cuts Damages to $4 Million
A U.S. federal judge has granted a permanent injunction preventing NSO Group, the Israeli-based spyware maker, from targeting WhatsApp users, ruling that the company’s software causes “irreparable harm” to the messaging service. The ruling follows a years-long legal battle brought by WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta Platforms, which accused NSO of deploying its Pegasus spyware to infiltrate thousands of devices through WhatsApp.
Judge Phyllis Hamilton found that NSO repeatedly reverse-engineered WhatsApp’s code and used “zero-click” and missed-call attacks to bypass security protections, undermining the core promise of informational privacy that the app offers its users. She said the technology company’s conduct “serves to defeat” what WhatsApp offers and is “ongoing.”
In her decision, the judge reduced a previous jury award of approximately $168 million in damages down to about $4 million, concluding that the earlier figure was “excessive” and that the conduct did not meet the legal threshold of being “particularly egregious” to support such a punitive sum.
The injunction represents a significant legal precedent for the tech and surveillance industries, showing that even sophisticated spyware firms may face serious restrictions when their tools are used to target widely-used consumer platforms. The reduced award also sparks discussion about how courts calculate liability and punishment in the rapidly evolving world of digital surveillance.
