NSO Group used WhatsApp exploits even after Meta-owned company sued it

Court filing revealed that NSO Group used WhatsApp exploits after the instant messaging firm sued the surveillance company.

NSO Group developed malware that relied on WhatsApp exploits to infect target individuals even after the Meta-owned instant messaging company sued the surveillance firm.

“As a threshold matter, NSO admits that it developed and sold the spyware described in the Complaint, and that NSO’s spyware—specifically its zero-click installation vector called “Eden,” which was part of a family of WhatsApp-based vectors known collectively as “Hummingbird” (collectively, the “Malware Vectors”)—was responsible for the attacks described in the Complaint. NSO’s Head of R&D has confirmed that those vectors worked precisely as alleged by Plaintiffs.” reads a court filing. “Defendants have admitted that they developed those exploits by extracting and decompiling WhatsApp’s code, reverse-engineering WhatsApp, and designing and using their own “WhatsApp Installation Server” (or “WIS”) to send malformed messages (which a legitimate WhatsApp client could not send) through WhatsApp servers and thereby cause target devices to install the Pegasus spyware agent—all in violation of federal and state law and the plain language of WhatsApp’s Terms of Service.”

NSO Group continued using WhatsApp exploits, including spyware called “Erised,” even after being sued for violating anti-hacking laws. The experts detected three exploits, called “Heaven,” “Eden,” and “Erised”, that were employed in over 1,400 attacks attributed to NSO Group.

“Even after WhatsApp detected and blocked the exploit described in the Complaint in May 2019, NSO admits that it developed yet another installation vector (known as Erised) that also used WhatsApp servers to install Pegasus.2 NSO continued to use and make Erised available to customers even after this litigation had been filed, until changes to WhatsApp blocked its access sometime after May 2020. NSO’s witnesses have refused to answer whether it developed further WhatsApp-based Malware Vectors thereafter.” continues the court filing. “All of these facts are undisputed, drawn principally from the corporate representative testimony of NSO’s own witnesses, which is binding on Defendants.”

NSO employees created and used WhatsApp accounts to develop malware, violating WhatsApp’s Terms of Service in multiple ways, including reverse-engineering, transmitting harmful code, collecting user data without authorization, and accessing the platform illegally. These actions also breached the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and California’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA). WhatsApp claims it suffered damages as a result of these violations.

In October 2019, WhatsApp sued the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group accusing it of carrying out malicious attacks against its users.

The legal action alleges that the Israeli surveillance firm tried to compromise approximately 1,400 individuals through WhatsApp hacking attempts.

In May 2019, Facebook patched a critical zero-day vulnerability in WhatsApp, tracked as CVE-2019-3568, that has been exploited to remotely install spyware on phones by calling the targeted device.

At the time, The Financial Times reported that the WhatsApp zero-day was exploited by threat actors to deliver the spyware developed by surveillance firm NSO Group.

The surveillance software developed by NSO Group was used by government organizations worldwide to spy on human rights groups, activists, journalists, lawyers, and dissidents. Security experts have detected and analyzed some of the tools in its arsenal, such as the popular Pegasus spyware (for iOS) and Chrysaor (for Android). 

In March 2024, Meta won the litigation against the Israeli spyware vendor, a U.S. Judge ordered the surveillance firm to hand over the source code for its Pegasus spyware and other products to the social network giant.

NSO Group has been requested to provide details regarding the complete functionality of the pertinent spyware, covering the period one year before the alleged attack through one year after the alleged attack (i.e., from April 29, 2018, to May 10, 2020).

Now, court filings reveal that NSO Group had minimal control over customers’ use of its spyware, contradicting prior claims by the Israeli firm.

Contrary to NSO’s claims, the filing suggests the spyware vendor operated its Pegasus system, with customers only needing to provide a target number. NSO disputes these allegations, asserting its clients solely operate the system.

“[NSO Group] stands behind its previous statements in which we repeatedly detailed that the system is operated solely by our clients and that neither NSO nor its employees have access to the intelligence gathered by the system.” said Gil Lanier, vice president of global communications for the Israeli firm.

The company is “confident that these claims, like many others in the past, will be proven wrong in court, and we look forward to the opportunity to do so.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, WhatsApp)