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.

A federal judge in California has agreed with WhatsApp that the NSO Group, the Israeli cybersurveillance firm behind the Pegasus spyware, had hacked into its systems by sending malware through its servers to thousands of its users' phones.

WhatsApp wins U.S. court ruling against NSO Group for Pegasus misuse; 43 intrusions revealed, damages trial ahead.

In a relief to WhatsApp, a US court has found Israeli firm NSO Group of hacking into WhatsApp by sending malicious software through its servers to more than a thousand targeted phones. The development comes months after a probe suggested that the software was used to spy on many Indians including journalists,

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.

Israel's NSO Group is accused of exploiting a bug in the messaging app to install spy software allowing unauthorised surveillance