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.

WhatsApp filed suit against NSO in 2019 in U.S. federal court, alleging it hacked 1,400 WhatsApp users, including journalists and government officials, using its Pegasus surveillance tool.

Meta-owned WhatsApp sued NSO in late 2019 in federal court in Northern California, accusing it of planting Pegasus spy software on the smartphones of targets using the messaging app.