NSO Ordered to Stop Hacking WhatsApp, but Damages Cut to $4 Million

According to SecurityWeek, NSO was ordered to stop targeting WhatsApp, with a permanent injunction granted by US District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton dated 17 October 2025. The ruling bars NSO from reverse engineering WhatsApp, from creating new WhatsApp accounts, and requires deletion and destruction of WhatsApp source code it possesses, though the ban is limited to WhatsApp and does not cover other Meta services.

WhatsApp had sued NSO in 2019 after a zero-day exploit was used to deliver spyware to about 1,400 users, and a December 2024 ruling held NSO liable for hacking WhatsApp users. In May 2025 a jury awarded more than $444,000 in compensatory damages and $167 million in punitive damages, but the judge reduced the punitive amount to just over $4 million, nine times the compensatory award as dictated by misconduct-sseverity rules.

The case notes that NSO has denied wrongdoing and that the company was recently acquired by American investors led by Robert Simonds, with ownership transferring in recent years.