Category World News

A judge in the United States slashed a previous damages award of just $ 4 million and has now quashed an injunction barring Israeli spyware maker NSO Group from targeting WhatsApp users.

District judge Phyllis Hamilton said the Israeli company’s conduct caused “irreparable harm” and that there was “no disputing that the conduct is ongoing” in a ruling on Friday that granted the owner of WhatsApp, Meta, an injunction to stop NSO’s spyware from being used in the messaging service.

One of the main goals of WhatsApp’s service, Hamilton claimed, is privacy, which NSO’s conduct “serves to defeat.”

Informational privacy is a part of what businesses like WhatsApp are “selling,” she said, and any unauthorised access interferes with that sale.

Hamilton argued in her ruling that the evidence at trial demonstrated NSO had repeatedly reverse-engineered WhatsApp’s code to evade detection and bypass security fixes by installing its spyware Pegasus on users’ phones.

NSO was established in Herzliya, an Israeli port city close to Tel Aviv, in 2010 and has its headquarters there.

Operators can remotely install spyware into devices using Pegasus, a highly invasive program designed to aid in the fight against crime and terrorism.

NSO claims that NSO only sells the spyware to government intelligence and law enforcement organizations that have been thoroughly checked. However, in late 2019, the owner of WhatsApp, Meta, filed a lawsuit in California federal court, accusing NSO of using its spyware to target journalists, lawyers, and human rights activists.

National governments, some of which have poor human rights records, have also used NSO’s software to attack critics, according to independent experts.

Given NSO’s “multiple design-arounds” to infect WhatsApp users, including missed phone calls and “zero-click” attacks, as well as the “covert nature” of the firm’s work more generally, Judge Hamilton said her broad injunction was appropriate.

WhatsApp’s CEO, Will Cathcart, stated in a statement that the “ruling prohibits spyware maker NSO from ever targeting WhatsApp and our global users again.”

“We applaud this decision, which comes after six years of litigation in which NSOs have targeted members of civil society. He claimed that it establishes a significant precedent for serious consequences from attacking an American business.

The judge found that Meta could not ascertain whether similar harm was being caused on the other platforms without more evidence after Meta requested an extension of the injunction to apply to its other products, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Additionally, Hamilton determined that the court lacked “sufficient basis” to support the jury’s initial calculation, and that an initial award of $ 168 million against NSO for damages to Meta in May of this year was excessive.

According to Hamilton, “the court has not yet been able to draw the conclusion that defendants’ conduct was “particularly egregious” because there were not yet enough cases involving unlawful electronic surveillance in the smartphone era.”

As forecasters for coastal flooding warned of tropical storm Fengshen’s imminent arrival, rescuers said a number of residents of a Philippine island have fled their homes along the Pacific coast.

Later on Saturday, the eye of the storm was forecast to pass Catanduanes, an impoverished island of 270 000 people, with gusts soaring up to 80 km/h (50 mph).

According to the government weather service, Fengshen will bring heavy rainfall and a “minimal to moderate risk” of coastal flooding from 1.2-meter (3.2) waves being pushed ashore, according to the weather service.

In a frequently repeated drill on the island, which has previously been the first major landmass to be hit by cyclones that form in the western Pacific Ocean, more than 9, 000 residents of Catanduanes were moved to safer ground, according to the provincial disaster office.

Rescue official Gerry Rubio told the AFP news agency that the Catanduanes provincial government had instructed local authorities to “activate their respective evacuation plans” for residents of “high-risk areas,” including the coast, low-lying communities, and landslide-prone slopes.

Every year, the Philippines experiences an average of 20 storms and typhoons, which impact the region’s most impoverished areas.

According to scientists, climate change is causing storms to grow stronger as the planet warms up.

Fengshen comes as China is still suffering from a string of severe earthquakes and typhoons that have claimed the lives of numerous people recently.

At least 79 people were killed earlier this month in Cebu, central Philippines, as a result of an earthquake of magnitude 6.9

At least six people were killed and a second, magnitude 6.9 quake, which occurred days later, off the southern Philippines, was the result of a magnitude 7.4 earthquake. Following each earthquake, tsunami warnings were issued.