The Israeli company NSO Group, previously fined $168 million for hacking hundreds of phones through WhatsApp, had its penalty reduced to $4 million by a San Francisco court on Friday.
In May, a jury in Oakland, California, had awarded Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, $444,719 in damages and $167.25 million in punitive damages.
However, a judge ruled on Friday that the law required the punitive damages to be capped at $4 million, according to a court judgment reviewed by AFP. The judge also approved Meta’s request for a permanent injunction preventing NSO from targeting WhatsApp users.
The legal battle has been ongoing for six years, with NSO challenging the case’s validity up to the US Supreme Court. Meta alleges that NSO used its Pegasus spyware in 2018 and 2019 to hack into around 1,400 phones via WhatsApp without the platform’s knowledge.
The alleged breach allowed one of NSO’s clients to monitor personal data and communications on the targeted phones. At the time of the incident, Meta, then known as Facebook, identified the intrusion, implemented additional security measures, and reported the breach to authorities.
Had the $168 million penalty been upheld, it would have dealt a significant financial blow to NSO, whose annual revenue in 2021 was estimated at $230 million.
NSO was recently purchased by US investors but remains based in Israel, where it operates under the supervision of local authorities and the Ministry of Defence, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch earlier this month.
In May, a spokesperson stated, “We are confident that our technology plays a crucial role in preventing crime and terrorism and is used responsibly by the government agencies we authorise.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that the WhatsApp hacking targeted individuals on behalf of European states allegedly investigating a suspect linked to ISIS and planning a Christmas-time attack.
Citing investigators, the report also claimed Meta had hindered the investigation by publicly exposing the surveillance operation and alerting the 1,400 affected individuals, including the primary suspect.
For years, NSO has faced accusations of enabling governments to surveil activists, journalists, and dissidents. In July 2021, a media-led investigation revealed a list of over 50,000 individuals who may have been monitored using Pegasus.
