Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp filed the lawsuit in October 2019 in California, accusing Israeli tech company NSO Group of spying on journalists, human rights activists and others.
WhatsApp claims that NSO Group attempted to infect approximately 1,400 devices with spyware in order to steal confidential information from WhatsApp users.
NSO Group defends itself by pointing out that its Pegasus spyware is a legitimate cyber surveillance tool intended to help government organizations fight terrorism and other types of crime.
However, security companies and other organizations have publicly disclosed a multitude of incidents in which Pegasus was used maliciously. The most recent of these was the use of a zero-day iMessage exploit to infect the iPhones of Al Jazeera journalists.
The favorable report, or friend of the court, that the aforementioned organizations presented in support of WhatsApp, underlines that the commercialization of software such as Pegasus is worrying due to the possible misuse by threat agents, mainly because the NSO Group does not share information about the vulnerabilities it detects in the platforms attacked, and because NSO and similar companies threaten human rights.
According to Microsoft, due to cyber surveillance companies such as NSO Group – which are called Private Sector Offensive Actors (PSOA or Private Sector Offensive Actors) – the number of countries using offensive cyber capabilities has increased from five between 2012 and 2015 to by at least 18 today.
“The information also shows that foreign governments are using these surveillance tools, bought from the PSOA, to spy on human rights defenders, journalists and others, including US citizens,” Microsoft notes in a blog post.
“Tools like Pegasus allow tracking the whereabouts of an individual. They can be used to listen in on conversations, read texts and emails, access photos, steal contact lists, download confidential data, access Internet search history and much more, ”Microsoft writes, adding that privacy is essential for journalists report on events, so dissidents can make their voices heard and democracy flourishes. “Cyber surveillance tools like Pegasus threaten all of this, as well as the lives of individuals,” Microsoft notes.
“The expansion of sovereign immunity sought by NSO further encourages the burgeoning cyber surveillance industry to develop, sell, and use tools to exploit vulnerabilities in violation of US law. Private companies should continue to be subject to responsibility when they use their cyber-surveillance tools to break the law or knowingly allow their use for such purposes, regardless of who their customers are or what they are trying to achieve, “Microsoft concludes.
Illustration: Christian Wiediger via Unsplash
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