On Tuesday, WhatsApp won a major win against the NSO group when a jury ordered the infamous spyware manufacturer to pay more than $ 167 million as a compensation for a meta-owned company.
The verdict has ended a legal battle for more than five years, which began in October 2019 when the WhatsApp NSO group accused the chat app’s audio-calling functioning of vulnerability to more than 1,400 users.
The verdict came after a week -long jury trial that NSO Group CEO Yaron Shohat and WhatsApp employees were featured in a number of testimonials who responded and investigated the incident.
Before the trial began, the case searched a number of publications, including the NSO Group’s position of his pegasus spyware, 1,223 of spyware campaigns and three of the spyware maker customers named for the names: Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the use of the Usebacle.
Read the TakeCrunch trial hearing and highlighting the most interesting information and manifestations published. We will update this post because we learn more from the cache of more than a thousand pages.
Testima describes how WhatsApp attacks did
Zero-Chikon attack, which means no interaction was needed from the spyware’s goal, “WhatsApp lawyer Antonio Perez said during the trial,” Worked with a fake WhatsApp phone call at the target. “The lawyer explained that the NSO Group made it a special machine called” WhatsApp Installation Server “, which is a special machine designed to transmit contamined messages by duplicating WhatsApp infrastructure.
“Once received, these messages will trigger the user’s phone to reach the third server and download the Pegasus Spyware. This is only needed to make it the phone number,” Perez said.
Tamir Gazelini, vice-president of the NSO Group’s research and development, testified that “Any zero-channel solution is an important milestone for Pegasus.”
The NSO Group confirmed that it noticed an American phone number as an FBI test
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For years, the NSO group has claimed that its spyware cannot be used against American phone numbers, which means a cell number that starts with the +1 country code.
In 2022, The New York Times first reported The company that “attacked” a US phone was part of a test for the FBI.
NSO Group lawyer Joe Acritirianakis confirmed that “single exception” was a specially configured version of Pegasus, not being able to notice the +1 numbers, which was used to protest possible US government customers. “
FBI The news has been chosen Pegasus do not deploy after his test.
How does the NSO group government customers use pegasus
NSO chief executive officer Shuhat explained that the user interface of Pegasas for his government customers did not provide the option to use any hacking method or technique against their interested target, “because customers do not use any vector, until they get the necessary intelligence.”
In other words, it is the back -finger pegasus system that spyware is known as a hacking technology to use a person to target a person, highlights a hacking technology.
NSO Group’s headquarters shares the same building as Apple
In a fun coincidence, the NSO group Headquarters Israel is in the same building in Herzlia in the suburbs of Tel Aviv in Israel As appleWhose iPhone customers are often targeted by NSO Pegasus Spyware. Shuhat said that the NSO occupied the top five -storey and Apple occupied the rest of the 14 -storey building.
The NSO group’s headquarters has been publicly advertised that it is somewhat interesting. Other companies that develop spyware or zero-day are similar to Barcelona-based Verston, which closed in February, was located in a co-worker when it was claimed to be located elsewhere on its official website.
The NSO Group admits that it is targeting WhatsApp users after the case is filed
After the spyware attack, WhatsApp filed his case against the NSO group in November 2019. Despite the active legal challenges, spyware makers are targeting users of the chat app, according to Tamir Gazeli, Vice President of NSO Group’s Research and Development.
Gazeli said that the codonam of one of the versions of WhatsApp Zero-Chinese vector was used by “Erizid”, from May to late May 2021, The other versions were called “Eden” and “paradise” and three were known as “Hummingbirds”.