Meta wins $168m in damages against NSO spying in US lawsuit

• Meta sought monetary damages and a permanent injunction to restrain NSO’s continued exploitation of its platforms, citing the ongoing risk to both the company and the millions of WhatsApp users worldwide.

Israel’s NSO Group faced a substantial federal jury penalty amounting to $168 million for orchestrating a highly sophisticated cyberattack on Meta’s WhatsApp servers.

The verdict marks the conclusion of a protracted six-year litigation process initiated by the American social media giant against the controversial surveillance company. Beyond the financial repercussion, the case exposes critical aspects of the spyware industry and raises pressing ethical and legal questions concerning digital privacy and state-sponsored espionage.

NSO Group’s modus operandi involved leveraging WhatsApp’s infrastructure to clandestinely infiltrate the devices of users worldwide, often on behalf of foreign intelligence agencies. According to court statements, between 2018 and 2020,

NSO charged European government clients a base fee of $7 million for access to its platform, enabling hacks on 15 devices concurrently. An additional premium of $1 to $2 million was levied for the capability to exploit devices outside a customer’s national jurisdiction.

Spyware enterprise

These figures, disclosed by NSO’s vice president of global business operations Sarit Bizinsky Gil, underscore the sizable commercial scale of the spyware enterprise.

The company’s executives sought to differentiate their tools from conventional spyware during the trial. Tamir Gazneli, NSO’s vice president of research and development, contested allegations of selling spyware by emphasising that their software served intelligence-gathering purposes targeted at “intelligence targets” rather than individuals per se.

This nuanced defense, however, was met with scepticism by Meta’s counsel, Antonio Perez, who highlighted the intrinsic human dimension of the implicated targets, thereby challenging NSO’s distancing from ethical accountability.

Upholding legal freedom

Complicating the narrative further were revelations pertaining to NSO’s historical transactions with US intelligence agencies, notably the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which together disbursed $7.6 million to the firm.

Reports indicate that the CIA facilitated Djibouti’s government’s procurement of NSO spyware, while the FBI conducted its own evaluations of the technology. These revelations illuminate the paradox wherein state actors, responsible for upholding legal freedoms, simultaneously engage private firms whose technologies may be deployed in ethically contentious ways.

Meta’s legal battle alleged that NSO’s intrusion attempts persisted even after the commencement of litigation, illustrating a blatant disregard for judicial proceedings and exacerbating the threat posed to user privacy.

Consequently, Meta sought not only monetary damages but also a permanent injunction to restrain NSO’s continued exploitation of its platforms, citing the ongoing risk to both the company and the millions of WhatsApp users worldwide.