The (ironically-named) Hacking Team is an Italian security firm with a history of supplying surveillance technology to governments around the world, including some unpleasant regimes. It’s now been hacked itself.
As CSO Online reports, the source of the hack isn’t clear yet, but a torrent file with 400GB of internal documents, product source code and email archives is now public. There’s no shortage of glee online about the development, particularly from privacy activists. Campaign group Reporters Without Borders lists Hacking Team on its Enemies of the Internet index. Most of the strong criticism directed at the company is down to its surveillance tool Da Vinci, which it says can be used to break encryption on emails, files and IP calls.
In the last, Hacking Company has denied any allegations of selling tools to the governments but the leaked emails show that company has done some pretty good business with the oppressive regimes in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain.
The unknown hackers have posted various file links on file sharing websites and replaced the company logo that read “Hacking Team” to “Hacked Team” on Twitter. Many companies are known to develop highly sophisticated software and help the governments to monitor the people’s smartphones and personal computers.
Apart from the above-mentioned clients, Hacking Team also supplies surveillance tools to Morocco and Ethiopia. The Verge writes that Hacking Team is infamous for injecting malicious scripts in Microsoft’s Live services and YouTube. Take a look at one of interesting clients below:
Also listed among the firm’s clients and former clients are the US Department of Defense (shown as not active), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which is in the process of renewing its contract, and the FBI, which was working with it until June 30, 2015.
The leak of sensitive documents from Hacking Team comes just as UK Prime Minister David Cameron is pushing once again for new laws to allow British intelligence agencies to break encryption.
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