The Vigilante Who Hacked Hacking Team Explains How He Did It:
After eight months of almost complete silence, the pseudonymous digital vigilante behind the hack has resurfaced, publishing a detailed explanation of how he broke into the company’s systems and laid bare its most closely guarded secrets.
The write-up breaks down not only how the hacker, who calls himself Phineas Fisher, sneaked into Hacking Team’s network and quietly exfiltrated more than 400 gigabytes of data, but also serves as a manifesto of his political ideals and the motives behind the hack.
“And that’s all it takes to take down a company and stop its abuses against human rights,” the hacker proclaimed at the end of his guide, which Motherboard has seen in advance. “That’s the beauty and asymmetry of hacking: with just 100 hours of work, one person can undo years of a multimillion dollar company’s work. Hacking gives the underdog a chance to fight and win.“
Source: Vice Magazine
Hacking Team’s Leak Helped Researchers Hunt Down a Zero-Day:
The malware they found is a remote-code execution exploit that attacks a vulnerability in Microsoft’s widely used Silverlight software—a browser plug-in Netflix and other providers use to deliver streaming content to users. It’s also used in SCADA and other industrial control systems that are installed in critical infrastructure and industrial facilities.
The vulnerability, which Microsoft called “critical” in a patch released to customers on Tuesday, would allow an attacker to infect your system after getting you to visit a malicious website where the exploit resides—usually through a phishing email that tricks you into clicking on a malicious link. The attack works with all of the top browsers except Chrome—but only because Google removed support for the Silverlight plug-in in its Chrome browser in 2014.
Kaspersky Lab caught its big fish, the Silverlight exploit, in late November after the zero-day infected a customer’s machine. But it took a clever lure and months of patient waiting to get that prize. The story behind that discovery provides an intriguing lesson in how researchers might uncover more zero days hidden in the wild.
Source: Wired
The FBI wasn’t that interested in Hacking Team’s spying tools after all, and let its contract with the controversial Italian surveillance technology contractor expire at the end of last month, according to leaked emails.
The massive breach of Hacking Team helped expose many of the company’s most guarded secrets, including its long list of customers, its technology, and its shadynetwork of resellers. The leaked documents also revealed that the Drug Enforcement Administration wasn’t the only customer in the United States. The FBI also purchasedspyware that allowed them to monitor a target’s communications such as emails, Skype calls or even unmask Tor users, from Hacking Team, through a $775,000 contract.
But a series of internal emails, which have not been reported on before, reveal that the FBI chose not to renew the contract, which was set to expire on June 30, despite the fact that Hacking Team lobbied to have them continue use the service.
Source: Vice Magazine
In April, we revealed that the Drug Enforcement Administration had purchased spyware from the controversial Italian surveillance vendor Hacking Team, secretly signing a contract worth $2.4 million in 2012.
But as it turns out, the agency barely used it, and doesn’t want it anymore.
Three months later, and after initially staying mum on its relationship with Hacking Team, the DEA finally revealed how it used the technology, which allows its operators to monitor a target’s computer or cellphone data, intercepting emails, messages, or Skype calls.
Source: Vice Magazine
That issue of whether hacking tools are defined as weapons in the terms of arms control agreements couldn’t be more timely: An arms control pact called the Wassenaar Arrangement has been hotly debated in recent weeks over its measures that would control the international export of intrusion software. The US Department of Commerce has opened the process to public comment, a window that ends on July 20.
The Wassenaar Arrangement has been criticized by the hacker community as limiting security research and preventing the sharing of penetration testing tools. But Privacy International’s Eric King argues that the practices of Hacking Team demonstrate why the pact is necessary, along with what he describes as “carve-outs” to protect security research. “What’s clear is that these companies can’t be left to their own devices,” says King. “Some form of regulation is needed to prevent these companies from selling to human rights abusers. That’s a hard policy question, and one tool won’t be a silver bullet. But regulation and export controls should be part of the policy response.”
Source: Wired
A presentation prepared by Hacking Team for a surveillance conference in South Africa later this month shows the company complaining about the “chilling effect” that it claims regulation of surveillance technology is having on the ability to fight crime.
The presentation singles out the organizations Hacking Team views as its main adversaries, noting that it is a “target” of groups such as Human Rights Watch and Privacy International and warning that “democracy advocates” are putting pressure on governments.
Separately, the company’s emails show CEO David Vincenzetti’s reaction to criticism from activist groups, who he says are “idiots” good at “manipulating things and demonizing companies and people.”
Late Sunday, hackers dumped online a massive trove of emails and other documents obtained from the systems of Italian surveillance firm Hacking Team. The company’s controversial technology is sold to governments around the world, enabling them to infect smartphones and computers with malware to covertly record conversations and steal data.
For years, Hacking Team has been the subject of scrutiny from journalists and activists due to its suspected sales to despotic regimes. But the company has successfully managed to hide most of its dealings behind a wall of secrecy – until now.
Source: firstlook.org
Hacking Team’s emails reveal its deceitful attempts to positively spin news reports that have exposed the company’s technology being used against journalists and activists in repressive countries. In October 2012, for example, Bloomberg and Citizen Lab revealed the company’s technology had apparently been used to target a pro-democracy activist in the United Arab Emirates, who was tracked down and beaten by suspected agents of the state. But instead of accepting responsibility and taking firm action against its customer, Hacking Team chose to issue a series of denials.
A technical analysis of the malware used against the activist showed it contained the acronym “RCS,” a reference to Hacking Team’s flagship spyware called Remote Control System. Hacking Team’s public relations guru Eric Rabe scrambled to find a way to muddy the waters, suggesting to his colleagues that they could identify another software with RCS in its name and pin the blame on that. He proposed the company could announce that “The initials RCS are, of course, the initials of a Hacking Team product, Remote Control System, but are also commonly used in software code for the term (WHAT?) Frankly they could mean anything.”
Late Sunday, hackers dumped online a massive trove of emails and other documents obtained from the systems of Italian surveillance firm Hacking Team. The company’s controversial technology is sold to governments around the world, enabling them to infect smartphones and computers with malware to covertly record conversations and steal data.
For years, Hacking Team has been the subject of scrutiny from journalists and activists due to its suspected sales to despotic regimes. But the company has successfully managed to hide most of its dealings behind a wall of secrecy – until now.
Source: firstlook.org
Global surveillance is a global industry, and as the headlines yesterday revealed, repressive governments are often eager customers. Hacking Team, an Italian surveillance firm that sells tools that enable governments to break into computers and cell phones, was itself hacked, with nearly 500GB of internal documents released to the world. Previously, the company claimed it did not sell these tools to governments with repressive regimes. Digital rights organizations were skeptical, and thanks to the Citizen Lab’s investigations, many of us in the global community have been keeping close tabs on the situation.
Now, thanks the Hacking Team hack, there is clear evidence that the company does in fact sell to countries including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Ecuador, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates.
The sale of surveillance tools to rights-abusing regimes directly impacts users at risk, including journalists, bloggers, sexual rights activists, members of the LGBTIQ community, and human rights defenders. In this blog post, we take a look at how people in these countries can protect themselves, and explore how companies and governments should respond.
Source: accessnow.org
The FBI is one of the clients who bought hacking software from the private Italian spying agency Hacking Team, which was itself the victim of a recent hack. It’s long been suspected that the FBI used Hacking Team’s tools, but with the publication yesterday of internal documents, invoices, emails and even product source code from the company, we now have the first concrete evidence that this is true.
The FBI is not in good company here. According to several spreadsheets within the hacked archive, which contain a list of Hacking Team’s customers, many of the other governments who bought the same software are repressive regimes, such as Sudan and Bahrain.
Source: Wired