NSO Should Lose Spyware Case for Discovery Violations, Meta Says

WhatsApp and its parent Meta asked a judge to award them a total win against spyware maker NSO Group as punishment for discovery violations in a years-long case accusing the Israeli company of violating anti-hacking laws. From a report: NSO Group violated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, repeatedly ignoring the court's orders and its discovery obligations, according to a motion for sanctions filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. 'NSO's discovery violations were willful, and unfairly skew the record on virtually every key issue in the case, from the merits, to jurisdiction, to damages, making a full and fair trial on the facts impossible,' they said. Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton should award the companies judgment as a matter of law or, 'if the court finds that the limited discovery produced in this case does not suffice,' enter default judgment against NSO, WhatsApp and Meta wrote.

The social media platforms first filed their complaint in October 2019, accusing NSO of using WhatsApp to install NSO spyware on the phones of about 1,400 WhatsApp users. The move follows Apple asking a court last month to dismiss its three-year-old hacking lawsuit against spyware pioneer NSO Group, arguing that it might never be able to get the most critical files about NSO's Pegasus surveillance tool and that its own disclosures could aid NSO and its increasing number of rivals.

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