Italy-based cyber-security company Hacking Team recently issued a statement claiming that the recent hack on their computer system was orchestrated by a foreign government.
Hacking Team CEO David Vincenzetti told Italian newspaper La Stampa, as cited by Reuters, "Given its complexity, I think that the attack must have been carried out at a government level, or by someone who has huge funds at their disposal."
Vincenzetti did not name a specific government responsible for the attack. Last week, Hacking Team was hacked by an unknown group of hackers and subsequently dumped 400GB worth of data from the company's server. The data dump was comprised of internal emails, list of clients, source codes, usernames and passwords.
Majority of the data was uploaded into whistleblower website WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks recently added a searchable directory for Hacking Team's email addresses.
Upon the release of sensitive information from Hacking Team's computer system, the company issued a statement asking its clients to stop using their programs since there is a probability that they were compromised.
Hacking Team said that since software source codes used for spying were leaked into the public domain, terrorists and extortionists can use these software to their advantage if they have the technical ability to do so.
The most intriguing of all the dumped information was Hacking Team's list of clients that is comprised of several intelligence agencies and foreign governments spanning all continent. One report even claims that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation paid Hacking Team a hefty sum of $800,000 that will cover the cost of software updates and upgrades for the Galileo Remote Control System.
The Galileo Remote Control System is a piece of proprietary software from Hacking Team that allows its user to hack into virtually any computer system completely undetected, according to Tech Times.