on Monday (9), The United States Supreme Court has authorized WhatsApp to continue the lawsuit against NSO Group company.is responsible for Pegasus spyware. The action, launched by Meta in 2019, questions the exploitation of a bug in the messenger to install spyware on victims’ cell phones.
In April last year, the Israeli company filed a petition arguing that it could not be prosecuted for acting on behalf of unidentified foreign governments by installing the software. However, this claim was rejected by the US judges and the process was allowed to continue.
According to the action, NSO Group used to exploit a loophole in the messaging service’s voice call to spread Pegasus among targets.. More than 1,400 phones belonging to journalists, lawyers, activists and government officials were reportedly seized during the campaign.
in an interview with TechCrunchWhatsApp spokesperson Carl Woog welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss NSO’s “baseless” appeal. According to him, the spyware developer He should be held legally responsible for his “illegal operations”.
New cases are on the way
In addition to the process carried by the meta messenger, Pegasus owner will have to deal with several other cases in United States justice. One of them was initiated by Apple, which sought injunctive relief to prevent any product or service from being used to install the spyware.
In another recent lawsuit, journalists from an El Salvador-based agency sued the NSO in a US court after spyware was detected on their iPhones. The group welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision, saying it paved the way for new lawsuits by companies and software victims.
Source: Tec Mundo
