Tel Aviv court orders Facebook to restore personal account of NSO Group employee

Facebook had blocked the account last year after suing NSO Group in a US court

An Israeli court has ordered Facebook to restore the personal account of an employee of NSO Group, a security company that provides online surveillance tools to governments across the world.

The employees had filed a petition in Tel Aviv District Court in November urging the court to lift a block that Facebook had imposed on their private accounts.

The NSO workers said that their accounts on Facebook and Instagram, as well as accounts belonging to their family members, were unfairly blocked by the company. Facebook claims that NSO took advantage of security flaws in the WhatsApp communications tool to enable users to be surveilled.

The sole purpose of NSO is to provide technology to licensed government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to help them fight terrorism and serious crime

The court has now ordered the social media giant to restore the account of one employee by Wednesday afternoon.

"We are certain that following the court's unequivocal statements, Facebook will reverse the action it took against other employees," an NSO spokeswoman said, according to Reuters.

Earlier in October, Facebook sued the Israeli firm in a US court accusing it of helping governments to conduct cyber espionage on hundreds of diplomats, journalists, and human right activists around the world by exploiting a WhatsApp security flaw in its spyware software. The company said that NSO used malicious code transmitted over WhatsApp servers from 29th April 2019 to 10^th May 2019.

WhatsApp also mentioned specific accounts created in Israel, Cyprus, Brazil, Sweden, Netherlands and Indonesia to achieve the hack.

At that time, Facebook said that blocking some NSO Group accounts was necessary for security reasons.

NSO threatens the safety and security of users and needs to be held accountable

Herzliya, Israel-based NSO Group, however, rejected the allegations, claiming that it only provides such software to governments for fighting crime and terrorism. The surveillance company is best known for its invasive tool, called Pegasus, that is said to be capable of switching on the camera and microphone of a target smartphone and exfiltrating data from it.

"The sole purpose of NSO is to provide technology to licensed government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to help them fight terrorism and serious crime. Our technology is not designed or licensed for use against human rights activists and journalists. It has helped to save thousands of lives over recent years," a spokesperson for NSO Group said in October.

Responding on court's decision, Facebook reiterated that NSO Group had conducted cyber attacks against journalists, diplomats and human rights activists in the past and that Facebook would "continue to take appropriate action" to ensure security of its users.

The social media platform also said that it would participate in the open court "to document how NSO threatens the safety and security of users and needs to be held accountable."

The court is expected to give rulings in coming days on Facebook accounts of other NSO employees that have been blocked by the social media platform.