Messaging giant WhatsApp won a landmark ruling Friday against the best-known maker of spyware when a federal judge in California ruled that NSO Group had hacked into the Meta unit’s systems by sending malicious software through its servers to more than a thousand targeted phones.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided on Wednesday to hear a bid by TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance to block a law intended to force the sale of the short-video app by Jan. 19 or face a ban on national security grounds.

Messaging service WhatsApp claimed a major legal victory over Israeli spyware firm NSO Group on Friday after a federal judge ruled that NSO was liable under federal and California law for a 2019 hacking spree that breached over 1,

NSO Group, the organization behind the Pegasus spyware, has been found liable in a lawsuit brought by Meta’s WhatsApp over attacks on about 1,400 devices, as reported by The Record. NSO Group is liable for charges of violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,

WhatsApp has prevailed against Israeli spyware maker NSO Group in a US lawsuit over NSO’s abuse of the messaging app to infiltrate the phones of journalists, activists and dissidents with its Pegasus hacking tool.

The NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance company, has been held liable for hacking WhatsApp and breaching its contract. This decision, made by a US judge, has significant implications for the spyware industry.

In a major legal victory, messaging app WhatsApp won a five-year-old case against NSO Group, the creator of the infamous Pegasus spyware. A U.S. judge ruled that the Israeli-based NSO had violated key American laws by hacking into WhatsApp systems and targeting over a thousand phones.