The legal battle between Meta-owned WhatsApp and Israel’s NSO Group, the developer of the notorious Pegasus spyware, has escalated again. This follows accusations by WhatsApp that the Israeli company is continuing to target users and violating a permanent injunction barring it from doing so.
In an recent update on June 8, 2026, WhatsApp said it had detected and disrupted new spear-phishing attempts attributed to the Israeli company, describing the activity as a violation of the court ruling against NSO, which barred it from targeting the application’s infrastructure or accessing its users’ data.
WhatsApp disclosed the pattern of the new attacks, noting that the attackers tried to trick victims into clicking malicious links that redirected them to websites outside the app, a familiar tactic in commercial spyware campaigns.
The instant messaging service provider’s technical teams reportedly detected the activity after receiving user reports of suspicious behavior. This revelation led them to identify and remove accounts and test groups linked to the operation.
Although WhatsApp did not disclose the number of people targeted or whether any of the attempts succeeded, it published technical indicators to help researchers and potential victims check whether they had been targeted.
WhatsApp’s new request builds on a legal battle that began in 2019, when it accused NSO of exploiting a vulnerability in the app to target about 1,400 users, including activists and human rights defenders.
In 2025, WhatsApp won a court ruling in its favor that included a permanent injunction barring the Israeli company from approaching its service.
While the court later reduced the amount of punitive damages awarded by the jury, the injunction remained in place. NSO is now trying to circumvent it by appealing the rulings.
The US Department of Commerce placed NSO on its restricted entities list in 2021 after determining that the company developed and supplied spyware tools to foreign governments, which used them to target officials, journalists, activists, academics, and embassy staff.
