Security News > 2020 > May > Spyware slinger NSO to Facebook: Pretty funny you're suing us in California when we have no US presence and use no American IT services...

Israeli spyware maker NSO Group has rubbished Facebook's claim it can be sued in California because it allegedly uses American IT services and has a business presence in the US. Last October, Facebook and its WhatsApp subsidiary sued the software developer and its affiliate Q Cyber Technologies in California, claiming that the firms made, distributed, and operated surveillance software known as Pegasus that remotely infects, hijacks, and extracts data from the smartphones of WhatsApp users.

WhatsApp security manager Claudiu Gheorghe in a previous filing identified 720 malicious attacks on WhatsApp from the IP address 104.223.76.220, a server in California provided by QuadraNet and allegedly run by NSO. QuadraNet did not immediately respond to The Register's request to clarify the account holder for that IP address.

As to Facebook's claim that NSO "Access[ed] server-side call settings and alter[ed] the technical architecture routing calls through its servers," that shouldn't even be considered because it was not mentioned in the initial complaint, the spyware biz's filing insists.

What's more, Facebook had claimed NSO "Had a marketing and sales arm in the United States called WestBridge Technologies, Inc," which NSO rejects.

Also none of the current directors of NSO or Q Cyber reside in the US. So, in short, NSO says it has no US presence - no management, no sales arm in America - and uses no US IT services, so how can it be sued in the US state of California?

News URL

https://go.theregister.co.uk/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/01/nso_whatsapp_california/