Spy company from Israel has to pay WhatsApp 168 million dollars

This article was last updated on May 8, 2025

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Spy company from Israel has to pay WhatsApp 168 million dollars

A espionage company from Israel has to pay WhatsApp nearly 168 million dollars (converted almost 148 million euros). A jury has that specifically In an American lawsuit between the two companies. The Israeli company has abused WhatsApp to install spy software on smartphones.

WhatsApp, part of Techbedrijf Meta, started the lawsuit in 2019 after the Israeli company NSO Group made you possible through the MessageApp espionage of more than a thousand people. NSO makes spy software with the name Pegasus. This can, among other things, turn on the camera and microphone, find out the location and see which photos and videos have been taken.

The software was secretly installed on the telephones of targets by a vulnerability in WhatsApp. WhatsApp closed the leak, but not before more than a thousand people were spied on.

Officially, governments may only use the spy service in the fight against terrorism and serious crime. But in practice, journalists, activists, lawyers and politicians were also spied on the software.

Issue not over yet

In December, the court ruled in the United States that NSO had violated American law. Now the damage has been established by a jury. A spokesperson for NSO leaves to the American news site Techcrunch know that the company may appeal.

“There is still a long way to go before we will receive the granted reimbursement from NSO”, “, says meta, the company behind WhatsApp. Meta says that it ultimately wants to transfer an amount to organizations that protect people against this kind of espionage attacks.

The legal battle is not over yet, says Meta. For example, the company wants to enforce that NSO can never again focus on WhatsApp to spy on people.

The lawsuit revealed many details about the work of NSO. It was announced last month that people in the Netherlands have also been the target of the NSO spionage. Who exactly they are is unclear. In 2022 De Volkskrant revealed That the Dutch intelligence service AIVD used the software to detect Ridouan Taghi.