NSO GROP must pay more than $ 167 million as compensation to WhatsApp for spyware holders

The NSO spyware group will have to pay more than 167 million dollars as compensation to WhatsApp for the 2019 penetration campaign against more than 1,400 users.

On Tuesday, after a five -year legal battle, a jury ruled that the NSO group must pay 167,256,000 dollars as punitive compensation and about $ 444,719 of compensatory damage.

This is a major legal victory for WhatsApp, which Request more than $ 400,000 In compensatory damage, based on the time that its employees had to devote them to treat attacks, investigate them, and pushing repairs to correct the weakness of the group NSO, as well as unlimited punitive damage.

“The case of the court has achieved history as the first victory against illegal espionage programs that threaten everyone’s safety and characteristic,” said a spokesman for WhatsApp Zade Alsawah in a statement.

Al -Sawaah said that the referee is “an important step forward for privacy and security as the first victory against the development and use of illegal spyware that threatens the safety and privacy of everyone. Today, the jury’s decision to force NSO, the famous foreign traders, and the security message, and pay the damage that we serve in the field of roles that we serve in security and security messages.

NSO GROUP Gil Lainer spokesman left the door open to appeal.

“We will carefully study the ruling details and follow the appropriate legal treatments, including additional procedures and appeal,” Lynar said in a statement.

The trial, as well as the entire case, paid a series of disclosure, such as The site of the victims of the spyware campaign 2019Besides Names of some NSO group customers.

The judgment represents the end – awaiting a possible appeal – for a legal battle that started more than five years ago, when WhatsApp file a lawsuit against spyware maker. The company owned by the NSO group accused the access to the WhatsApp servers and their exploitation Voice Security Gap In the chat application to target about 1,400 people, including dissidents, human rights activists, and journalists.

Chatcart, the WhatsApp president, explained the logic of the lawsuit In the Washington Post At that time, where he said: “This should be an invitation to wake up to technology and governments companies and all Internet users. Tools that allow monitoring in our private lives are abused, and this technology is multiplied in the hands of companies and irresponsible governments that endangered us all.”

Last December, WhatsApp won. Judge Felis Hamilton, who headed the case, spent that the NSO group was responsible for violating federal piracy and California in the 2019 spyware campaign against the 1400 WhatsApp users.

Celebrate Kathcart He said in the X Publishing It was a “great victory for privacy”, and that “observation companies should be about tolerance with illegal espionage.”

At this stage, the case has moved to the jury’s experience to determine the damage that owes the WhatsApp Spy Program Company, which has now concluded.

John Scott Reilton, the first researcher at Citizen Lab, celebrated the spyware industry for more than a decade.

“This is an incredible moment for those of us who have been present since the beginning of the search for mercenary spyware,” Scott Reilton told Techcrunch. “NSO makes millions of dollars help dictatorships to penetrate people. After years of every trick and delaying tactics, the jury took only deliberations today to see directly to the heart of the matter: NSO relies on the penetration of American companies … so that dictatorships can penetrate the defectors.”

“The company arises from this experience severely damaged,” said Scott Reilton.

This story has been updated to include comments from WhatsApp and John Scott-Railton.