Israel’s NSO Group was sued by Facebook on Tuesday. The social media network alleged that earlier this year, the cyber surveillance firm had hacked users of WhatsApp, its messaging platform. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of San Francisco. Facebook stated in the filing that diplomats, political dissidents, human rights activities, journalists, senior government officials and others had been targeted by the hacking spree. WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, is also a plaintiff in the suit filed. It also released a statement in which it highlighted that at least 100 members of the civil society had been targeted by the attack, which was undoubtedly a pattern of abuse.
The co-founder of NSO and the representatives of the company in Tel Aviv and Washington didn’t respond to the news about the lawsuit. The biggest social network in the world has sought unspecified damages and to have NSO barred from accessing or even from attempting to access Facebook’s services and WhatsApp. As per allegation, NSO took advantage of a flaw in WhatsApp to hijack phones. This news was made public this year in May and was a source of international consternation. At that time, NSO had made a statement that they would be investigating the allegations of ‘misuse’ of its technology. But, it hadn’t said anything about the specific attacks.
According to WhatsApp, its video calling system had been exploited in the attack for sending malware to the mobile devices of various users. It is believed that a total of 1,400 users had been targeted in the attack. Thanks to the malware, NSO’s customers, who happen to be intelligence organizations and governments, would be able to spy secretly on the owner of the phone thereby subjecting their digital lives to scrutiny. Approximately 1.5 billion people use WhatsApp monthly and the messaging app touts a high level of security. This includes the ability of sending end-to-end encrypted messages, which cannot be decrypted by WhatsApp or any other third parties.
In a statement, WhatsApp stated that this was the first time that legal action was being taken by an encrypted messaging provider against a private organization that has conducted this kind of attack. The phone hacking software developed by the NSO has already been implicated in a number of human right abuses across the Middle East and Latin America. This includes a massive espionage scandal in Panama and an attempt for spying on Amnesty International’s employee, the rights group based in London.
NSO was especially subjected to some harsh scrutiny over allegations that its spyware also played a role in in the death of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist. He was killed and dismembered a year ago at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Omar Abdulaziz, Khashoggi’s friend, is one of the seven journalists and activists that have taken the company to court in Cyprus and Israel. They alleged that the spyware firm’s technology was used for compromising their phones. A lawsuit has also been filed by Amnesty. In contrast, NSO has argued that it has dedicated its software for fighting terrorism.
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