Hacking Team comes with new spy software for governments
The infamous Hacking Team comes with a new set of tools for governments and other customers to decipher encrypted communications. The hackers sent an email to potential customers, touting their new capabilities.
The email was not made public, but Motherboard was able to see it. In the message, Hacking Team CEO David Vincenzetti states that his hacking company is offering new spy tools to break into encrypted connections. These would be in the final stages of development and according to Hacking Team itself a ‘game changer’. However, Vincenzetti does not say in his email what exactly the new tools can do.
Hacking Team probably hopes to win back some of its customers with the offer. The hacking company itself was hacked some time ago, with 400GB of information stolen from the servers. As a result, Hacking Team’s working method became clear and it also appeared that various governments had purchased software from the company. With the email, Hacking Team would like to mainly target US government agencies, such as local police departments.
The hack also stole the source code of Hacking Teams Remote Control System, tools to break into devices. Several of the vulnerabilities used by the hack suite were patched by software makers after the hack became known. However, according to Motherboard sources, a new version of Remote Control System is on the way, details of which are still unclear. Incidentally, the site also states that a number of customers who still use the previous version of the hacking software can use it again after being offline for a few weeks.