NSO Group to pay $168 million for using Pegasus spyware to target 1,400 WhatsApp users

The NSO Group is most likely to pay Meta-owned WhatsApp WhatsApp approximately $168 million in monetary damages. This comes more than four months after a federal judge ruled that the Israeli company violated U.S. laws by exploiting WhatsApp servers to deploy Pegasus spyware, targeting over 1,400 individuals globally. WhatsApp originally filed the lawsuit against NSO Group in 2019, accusing the latter of using Pegasus to target journalists, human rights activists, and political dissidents.

Court documents released as part of the trial have revealed that 456 Mexicans were targeted during the campaign, followed by 100 victims in India, 82 in Bahrain, 69 in Morocco, and 58 in Pakistan. In total, individuals across 51 different countries were targeted.

In a ruling issued in December 2024, United States District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton stated that Pegasus was sent through WhatsApp's California-based servers 43 times during the relevant time period in May 2019.

"Our case against spyware developer NSO made history when the court found that they broke both federal and state laws in the United States in December," Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp at Meta, said in a statement on X. “And the jury's verdict today to punish NSO is a critical deterrent to the spyware industry against their illegal acts aimed at American companies and our users worldwide."

Cathcart further added the company's next step is to secure a court order to prevent NSO from ever targeting WhatsApp again, adding it will be making a donation to digital rights organizations that are working to defend people against such attacks across the world.

In addition to the $167,254,000 in punitive damages, the jury determined that NSO Group must pay WhatsApp $444,719 in compensatory damages for the significant efforts WhatsApp engineers made to block the attack vectors.

Also Read: WhatsApp Wins as NSO Group Guilty of Illegal Surveillance