NSO lawyer names Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan as spyware customers behind 2019 WhatsApp hacks

Summary

The governments of Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan, among others, were behind the 2019 hacking campaign that targeted more than 1,200 WhatsApp users with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, according to a lawyer working for the Israeli spyware maker. During a hearing in the lawsuit between WhatsApp and NSO Group last Thursday, NSO Group’s lawyer Joe Akrotirianakis specifically named the three governments as the spyware-using customers, according to a transcript of the hearing obtained by TechCrunch this week. This is the first time that representatives for NSO Group have publicly confirmed who the spyware maker’s customers are (or were), after years of refusing to acknowledge or discuss its clientele, arguing that it was “unable” to do so, an NSO Group spokesperson told TechCrunch in 2023, for example. The revelation comes as part of a lawsuit brought by Meta-owned WhatsApp in 2019, which accused NSO Group of hacking around 1,400 WhatsApp users by exploiting a vulnerability in the messaging app’s systems between around April and May that same year. Contact Us Do you have more information about NSO Group, or other spyware companies? From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email. The content of last week’s hearing was first reported by Courthouse News Service. In the lawsuit’s complaint, WhatsApp claimed that there were more than 100 targeted victims who work as human rights activists, journalists, and “other members of civil society.” Citizen Lab, a digital rights group that has investigated government spyware abuses for more than a decade, said in a report at the time that it helped WhatsApp identify those victims. Last week, NSO Group’s lawyer Akrotirianakis told the judge that, “there’s at least eight customers whose names are part of the discovery in this case,” but only named three during the hearing. At the same time, the lawyer also hinted ...