VIDEO. One of the main Internet monitoring companies … – Le Parisien

Damien Licata Caruso | 06 Jul 2015, 24:13 |. Update: 06 Jul 2015, 4:09 p.m.

ILLUSTRATION.. The Italian SME Hacking Team suffered a major release of its data. Illustration. DR

The flight of more than 400 GB of its data confirmed and unveiled on business practices of this company specializing in software control and monitoring communications.

The unidentified hackers have posted on the Internet and social networks of thousands of documents, including contracts and e-mails between managers and their clients. Described as “Internet enemy” by Reporters Without Borders, the company based in Milan, claims to be a technology provider “offensive and easy to use for law enforcement and intelligence agencies worldwide.”

It markets including spyware, called DaVinci, or Galileo, which can intercept telephone conversations or Skype and SMS. Installed as a virus on a large scale computers, the software can also record audio and video through the webcam.


 VIDEO. Hacking Team Promotional Clip (2013)

Officially, forty employees SME does not sell its solutions to regimes “blacklisted” by the international community. The Citizen Lab research laboratory of the University of Toronto (Canada) last spring had pointed the responsibility of Hacking Team in espionage of journalists and organizations defending human rights.

The documents, including broadcast on the Twitter account hacked from SMEs, highlight the list of countries that have used their services. It includes Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan or Russia, but also Spain, Mexico and Australia. The biggest contract, $ 2.8 million, was signed by Chile. The FBI and other federal agencies have also had occasional recourse to services.

According to data that have leaked, Hacking Team also sells monitoring software to private Brazilian companies in particular, that they denied so far.

One of the founders of “HT” Christian Pozzi, tried to calm the social network explaining that the 400 GB file (accessible via a link BitTorrent) contained a virus and had filed a complaint but his Twitter account has since been deleted without explanation. The leak of the source code of spyware might sound the death knell for this company, which was based on the culture of secrecy.

A password choice rather light The reading thousands of pirated files also reveals that in terms of the internal security Hacking Team leaders have committed beginner mistakes. The Chief Christian Pozzi had indeed chosen “Passw0rd” or “No $ w0rd” as the password easy to remember – and to hack – for all accounts associated with the company. All IT security companies recommend to develop a more complex password that a single word or a date of birth in order to secure access to particular accounts with numbers and uppercase.