WhatsApp can sue Israeli company NSO Group over US appeals court rules | New Cybersecurity

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The Israeli company NSO Group has no sovereign immunity to protect the foreign government from U.S. litigation, the court said.
A U.S. appeals court has ruled that WhatsApp messaging services can move forward with a lawsuit Against the NSO Group, it asserts that the immunity of civil litigation in foreign courts in U.S. courts is not extended to Israeli private surveillance companies.
WhatsApp is suing the NSO Group for targeting California servers with malware, for unauthorized access to 1,400 mobile devices in violation of U.S. state and federal laws.
The Israeli company has since sparked outrage from rights groups a recent study the international media revealed that his Pegasus spy was being used by security forces and authoritarian governments in several countries.
On Monday, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Appellate Court in San Francisco upheld the lower court’s decision to allow the WhatsApp case to proceed, stressing that the NSO Group has no conditions for sovereign immunity despite its clients being foreign government agencies.
“The NSO claims that it should have extended immunity to sovereigns because it provides the technology used for law enforcement purposes and because law enforcement is an inherently independent function,” Judge Danielle Forrest, appointed by former President Donald Trump, wrote in the ruling. .
“What NSO government customers do with their technology and services does not turn the NSO into an agency or tool of a foreign state, as Congress has defined that term. So the NSO has no right to the protection of foreign sovereign immunity.”
Facebook Inc. recently changed its Meta name and owned WhatsApp first He sued the NSO Group 2019.
In the original legal complaint, WhatsApp accused the Israeli company of violating its terms of service and undermining the messaging platform’s “reputation, public trust and goodwill” with hacking activities.
The San Francisco court’s decision comes amid a renewed review of the NSO Group’s activities and less than a week after the Biden administration passed. punished after the company accused him of allowing “transnational repression” with his spy.
The Israeli company has rejected criticism, stressing that its products are used to target criminals and “terrorists”. He also promised to confront the Biden administration’s move.
Earlier Monday, nonprofit Frontline Defenders revealed that an NSO Pegasus spy had been detected on their phones. you are Palestinian human rights activists, three of whom have recently been affiliated with civil society groups Israel blacklisted him As a “terrorist organization”.
Amnesty International and the Citizen Lab of the University of Toronto have confirmed the finding in a joint technical report.
Meanwhile, a WhatsApp spokesman welcomed the US court’s decision on Monday, saying it was “an important step by the NSO to hold itself accountable for attacks on journalists, human rights defenders and government leaders.”
For its part, the NSO told Reuters news agency that it “has not touched on its mission”, reiterating its stance that its products contribute to public safety.
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