A court in the United States ordered NSO Group, the Israeli company that developed the Pegasus spyware, to pay $167.25 million (~RM 706 million) to Meta for being found guilty of hacking 1400 WhatsApp users in 2019.
After the report of Pegasus hacking activities was published, Meta (at the time Facebook) filed a lawsuit against NSO Group. Pegasus software gained global attention after it was found on the device belonging to Jamal Kashoggi who was later killed by Saudi Arabia. Although Saudi Arabia does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, NSO Group received permission from the Zionist regime to sell their software
It revealed the existence of spyware that a country's government can buy to monitor the activities of certain individuals. In addition to journalists, politicians, human rights activists and NGO officials were also among the victims of Pegasus. After this incident, Apple introduced Lockdown Mode which limits various device features to prevent users from being spied on.