Listen to this article:

New Delhi: Less than eight months after securing a landmark injunction against Israeli spyware maker NSO Group, WhatsApp and its parent company Meta have returned to a US court alleging that NSO violated the order almost immediately and continued to use the messaging platform to support Pegasus spyware operations.

In a contempt motion filed before the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Monday (June 8, 2026), Meta told the court that “clear and convincing evidence shows that NSO began violating this Court’s injunction almost immediately and continues violating it today”. The company has asked judge Phyllis Hamilton to hold NSO in civil contempt and impose escalating fines until it complies with the court’s order.

The filing marks the latest chapter in the long-running legal battle that began in 2019 when WhatsApp accused NSO of exploiting its platform to deploy Pegasus spyware against approximately 1,400 users worldwide.

Last October, Judge Hamilton granted WhatsApp a permanent injunction after finding NSO liable for violating US anti-hacking laws and breach of contract by using WhatsApp’s infrastructure to deploy Pegasus spyware.

The injunction, which became enforceable on January 28 this year, barred NSO from creating WhatsApp accounts, using technology that interacts with the platform and maintaining customer access to systems that depend on WhatsApp. It also required the company to delete code and technologies linked to WhatsApp and disable customer access to them.

According to Meta, NSO nevertheless continued operating on WhatsApp after the injunction took effect.

“Since the injunction went into effect on January 28, 2026, NSO has engaged in two categories of conduct that the injunction prohibits,” the filing stated. “First, NSO created and operated accounts on the WhatsApp platform, using them to set up groups for ‘testing’. Second, in February and April 2026, NSO used WhatsApp to send one-click malicious URL links to targeted WhatsApp users.”

Meta’s threat intelligence team claimed that it identified........

© The Wire