Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

Security world chuckles at Hacking Team’s 'virus torrent' squeals

Pull the other one, security pros implore eggfaced biz

Controversial spyware maker Hacking Team claims a torrent purporting to contain source code and other documents stolen from its systems is riddled with a "virus" – a claim laughed at by independent security experts in the industry.

Some 400GB of Hacking Team's internal emails, source code, and other files were published via BitTorrent early on Monday morning. The Italian firm’s Twitter feed was also hijacked as part of the comprehensive pwnage, as previously reported on The Register.

The torrent file reportedly also includes login credentials and passwords for their support site for Egypt, Mexico and Turkey.

Nobody has yet claimed credit for the hack.

Hacking Team's Christian Pozzi claims the leak of sensitive internal material contains a virus, a statement security experts are treating as an attempt at damage limitation.

“No, the torrent contains all of your viruses, which you sell, and which will get patched,” said John Adams, an ex-operations and security worker at Twitter, in an update that’s typical of the general industry response to the breach.

Pozzi denied selling malware, describing its wares as “custom software solutions” before his account was also seized.

Hacking Team re-established control of its Twitter account late on Monday morning. Its main site appeared to be having problems at the time of writing.

Hacking Team sells its Da Vinci malware/surveillanceware to law enforcement and governments. Critics argue that the kit is used by countries with patchy human rights records to spy on activists and journalists.

Analysis of the leak is ongoing, with early attention focusing on directory listings for the leak. These imply that the Italian firm’s customers included commercial firms and banks.

Hacking Team is not the first governmental malware contractor to get hacked. Something similar happened to Gamma International (suppliers of FinFisher) last year. Security breaches normally attract some sympathy, but Hacking Team's business means that its problems have provoked a very different response.

“Apparently the Italian equivalent of schadenfreude is gioia maligna,” said security expert Kenn White, on Twitter. ®

 

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like