Apple’s Lawsuit Against NSO Group Has Been Dropped at the Company’s Request, but Meta’s Continues ⇥ forbiddenstories.org

Stephanie Kirchgaessner, the Guardian, in February:

NSO Group, the maker of one the world’s most sophisticated cyber weapons, has been ordered by a US court to hand its code for Pegasus and other spyware products to WhatsApp as part of the company’s ongoing litigation.

Phineas Rueckert and Karine Pfenniger, Forbidden Stories, in July:

In July 2020, about nine months after WhatsApp sued NSO in a California court, the Israeli government requested for files in NSO’s office in Israel to be seized as NSO faced a potential discovery process, the consortium found. This pre-trial procedure, typical to common law jurisdictions such as the U.S., can lead to sensitive, internal documents being produced in court through a subpoena. Israel feared that these documents, if included in the lawsuit through discovery, could reveal information about Israeli state secrets.

The state of Israel also maneuvered to keep the seizure under wraps. Israel filed a gag order on information pertaining to the seizure of files at NSO’s offices, effectively preventing Israeli media from publishing information about the seizure. This publication ban, which has been in place for more than a year, aimed to protect Israel’s national security and foreign relations. The gag order referred to the WhatsApp litigation, suggesting that it could have been issued in response to the lawsuit.

Joseph Menn, Washington Post:

Apple asked a court Friday 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.

Apple’s request (PDF) cites the co-published Guardian version of the above Forbidden Stories reporting in saying it does not believe information it would produce in this suit would be held securely, and it worries about how forthcoming NSO Group has been. It also downplays the effects of a successful suit — a win would, according to Apple, “no longer have the same impact as it would have had in 2021” because there are plenty of NSO Group competitors.

WhatsApp appears to be continuing its suit against NSO Group. On the same day Apple filed its request to dismiss its case, WhatsApp attorneys were scheduling depositions (PDF). I hope Meta does not shy away from fully litigating this. It is important to hold vendors like these accountable for the abuse of their software.