United Kingdom, May 7 -- Meta has been awarded $168 million after a Californian jury ruled that Israeli spyware firm NSO unlawfully planted a bug in WhatsApp to spy on users in 2019.

The US's biggest social-networking firm won its case in December following a ruling that the spyware company used its tool, Pegasus, to target "over a thousand" WhatsApp users.

However, on Tuesday (06.05.25), a jury in California agreed that NSO needed to hand over $444,719 in compensatory damages, as well as $167.3m in punitive damages to Meta.

Meta - which is seeking to secure a court order to stop NSO "from ever targeting WhatsApp again" - said the jury's decision is a "critical deterrent to this malicious industry against their illegal acts aimed at Am...