Overview
- WhatsApp detected and stopped spear‑phishing tests that Meta linked to NSO Group and removed test accounts and groups the company created on the platform.
- Meta has asked a U.S. federal court to hold NSO in contempt for allegedly breaching a permanent injunction that bars the firm from targeting WhatsApp or its users.
- The phishing attempts resembled past “1‑click” attacks that trick victims into clicking a single malicious link that can compromise devices without asking for passwords.
- Meta says a coalition of 12 civil‑rights, security and privacy groups filed amicus briefs opposing NSO’s appeal of the injunction and that it is sharing technical indicators to help potential targets check for abuse.
- The dispute builds on long‑running concerns over NSO’s Pegasus spyware, U.S. blacklisting, and a prior court decision that kept the injunction in place while cutting punitive damages against NSO.