“In other words, the customer simply places an order for a target device’s data, and NSO controls every aspect of the data retrieval and delivery process through its design of Pegasus,” WhatsApp argued.

The court filings cited an NSO employee as saying it “was our decision whether to trigger [the exploit] using WhatsApp messages or not,” referring to one of the exploits the company offered its customers.

When reached for comment, NSO spokesperson Gil Lainer said in a statement to TechCrunch: “NSO stands behind its previous statements in which we repeatedly detailed that the system is operated solely by our clients and that neither NSO nor its employees have access to the intelligence gathered by the system.”