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TechCrunch
4 days ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Eight things we learned from WhatsApp vs. NSO Group spyware lawsuit
On May 6, WhatsApp scored a major victory against NSO Group when a jury ordered the infamous spyware maker to pay more than $167 million in damages to the Meta-owned company. The ruling concluded a legal battle spanning more than five years, which started in October 2019 when WhatsApp accused NSO Group of hacking more than 1,400 of its users by taking advantage of a vulnerability in the chat app's audio-calling functionality. The verdict came after a week-long jury trial that featured several testimonies, including NSO Group's CEO Yaron Shohat and WhatsApp employees who responded and investigated the incident. Even before the trial began, the case had unearthed several revelations, including that NSO Group had cut off 10 of its government customers for abusing its Pegasus spyware, the locations of 1,223 of the victims of the spyware campaign, and the names of three of the spyware maker's customers: Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan. TechCrunch read more than 1,000 pages of court transcripts of the trial's hearings. We have highlighted the most interesting facts and revelations below. New testimony described how the WhatsApp attack worked The zero-click attack, which means the spyware required no interaction from the target, 'worked by placing a fake WhatsApp phone call to the target,' as WhatsApp's lawyer Antonio Perez said during the trial. The lawyer explained that NSO Group had built what it called the 'WhatsApp Installation Server,' a special machine designed to send malicious messages across WhatsApp's infrastructure mimicking real messages. 'Once received, those messages would trigger the user's phone to reach out to a third server and download the Pegasus spyware. The only thing they needed to make this happen was the phone number,' said Perez. NSO Group's research and development vice president Tamir Gazneli testified that 'any zero-click solution whatsoever is a significant milestone for Pegasus.' NSO admitted that it kept targeting WhatsApp users after the lawsuit was filed Following the spyware attack, WhatsApp filed its lawsuit against NSO Group in November 2019. Despite the active legal challenge, the spyware maker kept targeting the chat app's users, according to NSO Group's research and development vice president Tamir Gazneli. Gazneli said that 'Erised,' the codename for one of the versions of the WhatsApp zero-click vector, was in use from late-2019 up to May 2020. The other versions were called 'Eden' and 'Heaven,' and the three were collectively known as 'Hummingbird.' NSO confirms it targeted an American phone number as a test for the FBI Contact Us Do you have more information about NSO Group, or other spyware companies? From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or Do you have more information about NSO Group, or other spyware companies? From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email . For years, NSO Group has claimed that its spyware cannot be used against American phone numbers, meaning any cell number that starts with the +1 country code. In 2022, The New York Times first reported that the company did 'attack' a U.S. phone but it was part of a test for the FBI. NSO Group's lawyer Joe Akrotirianakis confirmed this, saying the 'single exception' to Pegasus not being able to target +1 numbers 'was a specially configured version of Pegasus to be used in demonstration to potential U.S. government customers.' The FBI reportedly chose not to deploy Pegasus following its test. How NSO's government customers use Pegasus NSO's CEO Shohat explained that Pegasus' user interface for its government customers does not provide an option to choose which hacking method or technique to use against the targets they are interested in, 'because customers don't care which vector they use, as long as they get the intelligence they need.' In other words, it's the Pegasus system in the backend that picks out which hacking technology, known as an exploit, to use each time the spyware targets an individual. NSO says it employs hundreds of people NSO Group's CEO Yaron Shohat disclosed a small but notable detail: NSO Group and its parent company, Q Cyber, have a combined number of employees totalling between 350 and 380. Around 50 of these employees work for Q Cyber. NSO's headquarters shares the same building as Apple In a funny coincidence, NSO Group's headquarters in Herzliya, a suburb of Tel Aviv in Israel, is in the same building as Apple, whose iPhone customers are also frequently targeted by NSO's Pegasus spyware. Shohat said NSO occupies the top five floors and Apple occupies the remainder of the 14-floor building. 'We share the same elevator when we go up,' Shohat said during testimony. The fact that NSO Group's headquarters are openly advertised is somewhat interesting on its own. Other companies that develop spyware or zero-days like the Barcelona-based Variston, which shuttered in February, was located in a co-working space while claiming on its official website to be located somewhere else. Pegasus spyware cost European customers millions During their testimony, an NSO Group employee revealed how much the company charged European customers to access its Pegasus spyware between 2018 and 2020, saying the 'standard price' is $7 million, plus an additional $1 million or so for 'covert vectors.' These new details were included in a court document without the full context of the testimony, but offers an idea of how much advanced spyware like Pegasus can cost paying governments. While not explicitly defined, 'covert vectors' likely refer to stealthy techniques used to plant the spyware on the target phone, such as a zero-click exploit, where a Pegasus operator doesn't need the victim to interact with a message or click a link to get hacked. The prices of spyware and zero-days can vary depending on several factors: the customer, given that some spyware makers charge more when selling to countries like Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, for example; the number of concurrent targets that the customer can spy on at any given time; and feature add-ons, such as zero-click capabilities. All of these factors could explain why a European customer would pay $7 million in 2019, while Saudi Arabia reportedly paid $55 million and Mexico paid $61 million over the span of several years. NSO describes a dire state of finances During the trial, Shohat answered questions about the company's finances, some of which were disclosed in depositions ahead of the trial. These details were brought up in connection with how much in damages the spyware maker should pay to WhatsApp. According to Shohat and documents provided by NSO Group, the spyware maker lost $9 million in 2023 and $12 million in 2024. The company also revealed it had $8.8 million in its bank account as of 2023, and $5.1 million in the bank as of 2024. Nowadays, the company burns through around $10 million each month, mostly to cover the salaries of its employees. Also, it was revealed that Q Cyber had around $3.2 million in the bank both in 2023 and 2024. During the trial, NSO revealed its research and development unit — responsible for finding vulnerabilities in software and figuring out how to exploit them — spent some $52 million in expenses during 2023, and $59 million in 2024. Shohat also said that NSO Group's customers pay 'somewhere in the range' between $3 million and 'ten times that' for access to its Pegasus spyware. Factoring in these numbers, the spyware maker was hoping to get away with paying little or no damages. 'To be honest, I don't think we're able to pay anything. We are struggling to keep our head above water,' Shohat said during his testimony. 'We're committing to my [chief financial officer] just to prioritize expenses and to make sure that we have enough money to meet our commitments, and obviously on a weekly basis.' First published on May 10, 2025 and updated with additional details.
India Today
14-05-2025
- India Today
WhatsApp sued but NSO Group kept unleashing Pegasus spyware on users
Last week, Meta won the Rs 1,400 crore lawsuit against Israeli firm NSO Group in the Pegasus spyware case. The lawsuit was filed by Meta's WhatsApp in 2019 after a research found that the NSO Group hacked into the WhatsApp account of 1,400 users by injecting the Pegasus spyware, which was done by taking advantage of a vulnerability in its audio call feature. On May 6, 2025, the 5-year-long legal battle between Meta and NSO Group concluded, and the jury trial ruled that the Israeli company was guilty of hacking into the accounts of thousands of WhatsApp users. advertisementHowever, the transcripts of the trial's proceedings were accessed by TechCrunch, which revealed an interesting – if we can call it that – thing about the Pegasus attacks. Reportedly, the NSO Group admitted during the trial that even after Meta had sued the company for the WhatsApp hacks, it continued to target WhatsApp users. Apparently, NSO Group's research and development vice president, Tamir Gazneli, acknowledges that the Pegasus-maker was rolling out targeted attacks between late 2019 to May 2020. Gazneli revealed that the spyware codenamed 'Erised', which was one of the WhatsApp zero-click vectors, was pushed during that period of time. Reminder: Meta sued the NSO Group in October 2019. As per the NSO Group's executive, the company was using other versions of the spyware as well, which were codenamed 'Eden' and 'Heaven', and collectively the three versions were called 'Hummingbird'. advertisement The Pegasus attacks were first spotted and highlighted by Citizen Lab, which had revealed that the company was infecting smartphones with spyware via phone calls. This was regardless of the user answering the call. If the spyware call went on their device, their phone would be infected. This led to the spyware taking control over the infected device's camera and microphone, which allowed it to access call records, messages, emails, locations and even passwords in some scenarios. The cyberattack primarily focused on journalists, human rights defenders, and diplomats, impacting users across more than 50 countries. Court documents filed last month revealed that India accounted for at least 100 of the 1,400 identified targets. These attacks are believed to have occurred within just two months, between April and May 2021, Apple took legal action against the NSO Group, accusing it of deploying Pegasus spyware to infiltrate iPhones. At the time, Apple stated that it was pursuing a permanent court order to block the company from accessing any of its software, services, or year, in December 2024, a US court found the NSO Group responsible for the hacking incidents involving WhatsApp. Earlier this month, Meta won the case against NSO Group.
Reuters
06-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Meta suit against Israel's NSO offered rare insight into world of cyberespionage
WASHINGTON, May 6 (Reuters) - Israel's NSO Group was handed a $168 million penalty by a federal jury in California on Tuesday for hijacking the servers of WhatsApp in order to hack users of the Meta (META.O), opens new tab -owned chat platform on behalf of foreign spy agencies. The case caps a six-year battle between the American social media giant and the surveillance firm. It has also cast a unusual amount of light on the inner workings of the spyware industry. Here is what we have learned: The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. TOP-SHELF SPYWARE IS NOT CHEAP Between 2018 and 2020 NSO charged its European government customers a "standard price" of $7 million for use of its platform to hack 15 different devices at a time, according to Sarit Bizinsky Gil, NSO's vice president of global business operations. The executive said the ability to hack a phone outside the customer's country was a separate add-on worth approximately $1 million or $2 million. "It is a highly sophisticated product," Meta lawyer Antonio Perez told the court in his opening statement, opens new tab, "And it carries a hefty price tag." NSO HACKED THOUSANDS OF DEVICES Between 2018 and 2020 the Israeli spyware firm was responsible for breaking into thousands of devices, according to Tamir Gazneli, NSO's vice president of research and development. During the trial, Gazneli said he disagreed with the idea, opens new tab that his company sold "spyware," leading to an exchange with Perez, opens new tab in which Gazneli insisted his firm's tools were used to gather intelligence on targets but "not people." "You don't consider the targets people, Mr. Gazneli?" Perez asked him. "That's not what I said," he responded. "What I said is that the targets are intelligence targets of intelligence agencies." AMERICAN TAXPAYERS SENT MILLIONS TO NSO'S COFFERS The Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation collectively paid NSO $7.6 million, according to court records, opens new tab. The agencies' past dealings with the Israeli spyware company had previously been disclosed by The New York Times, opens new tab, which said the CIA bankrolled Djibouti's purchase of NSO spyware and the bureau bought it for testing, but the trial put a price tag on the relationship. NSO TARGETED WHATSAPP'S INFRASTRUCTURE DURING THE LAWSUIT The lawsuit against NSO did not deter the spyware firm from continuing to abuse WhatsApp's infrastructure, Meta's lawyers said in a court document filed late last month. "NSO repeatedly targeted Plaintiffs, Plaintiffs' servers, and Plaintiffs' mobile client even after this litigation was filed," the filing said. The filing seeks a permanent injunction against NSO, which it said "poses a significant threat of ongoing and prospective harm" to Meta, its platform, and its users.
