U.S. messaging firm sues surveillance company for hacking activities

Source: Xinhua | 2019-10-31

WhatsApp, a messaging company owned by Facebook, sued on Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group on Tuesday for hacking mobile phones and devices of its 1,400 users.
The U.S. messaging firm filed a lawsuit to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, accusing NSO Group of sending malware to the phones of target users, including government officials, journalists, civil rights workers and diplomats.
WhatsApp said NSO Group, which was unable to break its end-to-end encryption, developed malware including the "Pegasus" spyware to access messages and other communications of its users.
Pegasus could "remotely and covertly extract valuable intelligence from virtually any mobile device," said WhatsApp in its filing to the court.
WhatsApp disclosed that its team detected in May the cyber-attacks and took measures to block NSO Group's unauthorized access and its abuse of service.
"This is the first time that an encrypted messaging provider is taking legal action against a private entity that has carried out this type of attack against its users," said WhatsApp, adding it is seeking a permanent injunction banning NSO Group from using its service.
NSO Group denied the allegations and claimed that it only provided technology to licensed government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to help them fight terrorism and serious crime.
WhatsApp said it has over 1.5 billion monthly active users, with over half a billion daily active users in 2019. It was purchased by Facebook in 2014 for 19 billion U.S. dollars.