By Gloria Nosa
A US federal judge has issued an injunction preventing Israeli spyware maker NSO Group from targeting WhatsApp users, even as she drastically reduced the damages the company must pay Meta from $168 million to $4 million.
District Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled that while NSO’s actions were unlawful and caused ongoing harm, they did not meet the “particularly egregious” threshold needed to justify the original jury award.
The case, filed by Meta in 2019, accused NSO Group of exploiting WhatsApp to secretly install spyware on about 1,400 devices belonging to journalists, lawyers, activists, and other high-profile targets. According to evidence presented, NSO reverse-engineered WhatsApp’s code and repeatedly modified its tools to bypass security fixes, allowing it to access private communications and data.
In her ruling, Judge Hamilton acknowledged the severity of the conduct:
“Defendants’ conduct causes irreparable harm, and there being no dispute that the conduct is ongoing, the court grants an injunction.”
The injunction bars NSO from using WhatsApp to deploy its spyware in the future, closing a major avenue of attack.
Founded in 2010 and based in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, NSO Group is best known for its Pegasus spyware, capable of remotely activating a target’s phone camera and microphone and siphoning off sensitive data. Independent investigations have linked its tools to surveillance campaigns by governments with troubling human rights records.
While NSO has long insisted that its software is only sold to governments to combat crime and terrorism, critics argue its products are being abused to suppress dissent and monitor civil society.
The ruling marks a partial victory for Meta: though the damages were reduced, the injunction serves as a legal barrier against NSO’s intrusion into its encrypted platform, reinforcing broader concerns about digital privacy in the smartphone era.
