On Tuesday, WhatsApp has achieved great success against the NSO Group When a jury ordered the notorious spyware maker to pay more than 7 167 million damages to a meta -owned company.
The decision ended a legal battle for more than five years, which began in October 2019 when WhatsApp blames NSO Group Hack your 1,400 users by taking advantage of weakness in the chat app Audio Calling functionality.
The decision came after a week -long jury trial, which presented several evidence, including employees of the NSO group’s CEO Yaron Shohat and WhatsApp, who responded and investigated the incident.
Before the trial began, the case had discovered several revelations, including the NSO group. He had cut his 10 government users To abuse its pegasus spyware, Places of 1,223 of the victims Spyware campaigns, and three users of spyware makers: Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan.
The tech cranch reads the trial copies and it is highlighting the most interesting facts and revelations that have come out. We will update this post because we learn more than a thousand pages of cache.
Witness told how the WhatsApp attack worked
Zero Click AttackAs WhatsApp lawyer Antonio Perez said during the trial, which means that Spyware does not need any interaction with the target, “Fake WhatsApp phone calls”, “as WhatsApp’s lawyer Antonio Perez said during the trial, the lawyer said that the NSO was a special machine. Infrastructure is designed to send malicious messages that imitate real messages.
“Once received, those messages will mobilize the user’s phone to reach the third server and to download Pigasus Spyware,” said Perez.
Tamir Gazli, vice president of the NSO Group’s Research and Development, testified, “Whatever zero click solution for Pagasis is an important milestone.”
The NSO Group confirmed that it has targeted an American phone number as a FBI test
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For years, the NSO group has claimed that its spyware cannot be used against US phone numbers, namely a cell number that starts with a +1 country code.
In 2022, New York Times reported the first time That the company “attacked” US phone but was part of the FBI test.
The NSO group lawyer, who confirmed this, confirmed that the “only exception” of not being able to target Pagasis +1 was a particularly structured version of Pagasis, which would be used in a possible demonstration of US government users. “
FBI Chosen according to the notifications Not to be deployed after the test.
How do NSO Group’s official users use Pegasis
NSO CEO Shohut explained that the Pagasus user interface for its government users does not provide any option to use what hacking method or technique they are interested in against the goals, “because users do not care what vector they use, as long as they need their needs.”
In other words, it is a pagasis system in the backdrop that selects hacking technology, known as one ExploitationEvery time spyware targets an individual.
NSO Group’s headquarters shares the same building like Apple
In a ridiculous coincidence, NSO Group Headquarters In Harzilia, a suburb of Israeli Tel Aviv, is in the same building As appleWhose iPhone users are also often targeted by NSO’s Pigasus Spyware. Shohut said the NSO occupied the first five floors and Apple occupied the rest of the 14 floor building.
The fact is that the headquarters of the NSO group are openly publicized, it itself is somewhat interesting. Other companies that develop like spyware or zero day Verston based in BarcelonaWhich Closed in FebruaryWas located in a working place, claiming to be somewhere else on its official website.
The NSO Group admitted that it has targeted WhatsApp users after being filed
After the spyware attack, WhatsApp filed its case against the NSO group in November 2019. Despite the active legal challenge, the spyware maker targeted the users of the chat app, according to Tamir Gazani, vice president of the NSO Group’s Research and Development.
Gazali said the code name for a version of WhatsApp Zero Click Vector, was in use from late 2019 to May 2020. The second version was called “Eden” and “Paradise” and all three were collectively known as “Hamangbird”.