Less than a year after a landmark court victory that should have put the matter to rest, WhatsApp is back in court this time not to win a new case, but to enforce an order NSO Group appears to have simply ignored.
On June 8, 2026, Meta announced it is filing a federal contempt motion against NSO Group, the Israeli surveillance technology firm behind the notorious Pegasus spyware, alleging that the company violated a permanent injunction issued in October 2025 that explicitly barred it from ever targeting WhatsApp or its users again.
WhatsApp’s statement was direct: “The court was unequivocal NSO violated the federal and state laws against hacking. Today, we’re asking the court to hold them in contempt of that order.”
What WhatsApp Caught
WhatsApp announced it caught and disrupted a new hacking campaign linked to NSO Group following an investigation prompted by user reports. The campaign involved spear phishing attempts where users were tricked into clicking malicious links designed to direct them to external websites outside of WhatsApp.
The attacks were similar to previous one-click phishing campaigns, and WhatsApp also caught NSO creating test accounts and groups on its platform, which were subsequently taken down.
These are not the zero-click exploits that made Pegasus infamous in earlier campaigns. They are social engineering attacks but they are attacks that NSO is legally forbidden from running in any form against WhatsApp users, under any circumstances.
How the Legal Battle Got Here
The origins of this dispute stretch back to 2019, when NSO exploited a vulnerability in WhatsApp’s voice call infrastructure a buffer overflow in the VOIP stack to silently install Pegasus on the devices of roughly 1,400 people. The targets included journalists, lawyers, human rights workers, political dissidents, and senior foreign government officials. WhatsApp notified the victims and filed suit.
The case wound through the courts for years. In May 2025, a US federal jury ordered NSO Group to pay $167,254,000 in punitive damages and $444,719 in compensatory damages. That verdict was accompanied by a permanent injunction barring NSO from ever targeting WhatsApp and its users again.
The punitive damages figure was later reduced by the presiding judge to approximately $4 million, with the court finding insufficient evidence to justify the larger punitive amount. Meta welcomed the overall decision, calling it an important precedent for holding spyware firms accountable.
Barely eight months after that injunction was issued, WhatsApp says NSO is back.
NSO’s Position and Its Broader Ambitions
NSO has consistently maintained that Pegasus is sold exclusively to vetted government clients for lawful purposes tracking terrorists, locating missing persons, and assisting in criminal investigations. The company has not publicly responded to the latest contempt filing.
But evidence from the trial itself paints a picture of a company that views platform restrictions as temporary obstacles rather than permanent limits. NSO’s own CEO confirmed in court proceedings that the company actively seeks alternative methods to access devices beyond WhatsApp, including browsers, operating systems, and third-party applications an admission that illustrates the persistent and expansive nature of its surveillance operations.
A Growing Coalition Against Spyware
WhatsApp is not pursuing this alone. In May 2026, twelve civil rights organisations filed amicus briefs in support of the permanent injunction as NSO appealed the original ruling, urging courts to hold the ban firmly in place. ARNnet
Meta also announced it is supporting a growing coalition of privacy advocates, security researchers, and digital rights experts who are pushing for stronger action against the commercial spyware industry, which it characterises as a national security threat. WhatsApp has also made a financial contribution to the Spyware Accountability Initiative, a fund supporting forensic research organisations and user-support networks working on spyware-related issues globally.
Why This Matters Beyond WhatsApp
Over the past decade, security researchers, journalists, and technology companies have documented dozens of cases in which government operators deployed NSO’s tools to surveil and hack journalists, dissidents, human rights workers, and political opponents. The Pegasus Project a coordinated global investigation published in 2021 identified heads of state, cabinet ministers, and activists among confirmed or potential targets in countries across four continents.
NSO has always operated in the shadows between legitimate law enforcement use and documented abuse. WhatsApp’s contempt motion is the latest attempt to drag that operation fully into the light and to establish, through the courts, that a permanent injunction actually means what it says.
NSO Group had not responded to media requests for comment at the time of publication.
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