Pegasus scandal continues: US court penalty Israeli company $ 170 million

A big US spy spy has ended. A district court in California has found the Israeli company NSO Group, which developed the Pegasus program, which is liable for the security of WhatsApp -Messenger users and its owner Meta and has instructed to pay around 170 million US dollars. This was reported by Politico.

The lawsuit began in October 2019, when it became known that the NSO group had spread the Pegasus spyware to more than 1.4,000 smartphones by using weaknesses in WhatsApp. These devices included the phones of journalists, human rights activists and diplomats from countries such as Bahrain, VAE and Mexico.

According to the official declaration of META, the court decision is the result of the security efforts of the company, and now the NSO group is excluded from the implementation of attacks on WhatsApp. META will also direct the funds paid by the NSO group to international organizations that protect digital rights and personal data.

However, the NSO group contested the criticism of the Pegasus program. According to company representatives, the program is used by the country's governments to prevent terrorism and serious crimes. They emphasized that Pegasus is not sold to private users, but only to government agencies, and that they are willing to combat gross abuse.

The Pegasus program became one of the most sensational information security issues in 2021. As it turned out, the program enabled complete access to all data on the phone, including protected functions such as conversations, news, camera, microphone and geolocation data.

It should be remembered that in April 2024 the case was reopened in connection with Pegasus in Spain and that the investigators examine the use of the Israeli group program to monitor the telephones of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and several high -ranking civil servants.

The incident has intensified international criticism of the NSO group and caused serious concerns about the unreserved use of espionage technologies. At the same time, the topic of protection of personal data and the struggle for digital rights on the international agenda seems to be increasingly important.

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