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Tuesday, 7 July 2015

Hacking Team Hacked
July 07, 2015

An email from a person linked to several domains allegedly tied to the Meles Zenawi Foundation (MZF), Ethiopia’s Prime Minister until his death in 2012, was published Sunday evening as part of the cache of files taken from Hacking Team.

In the email, Biniam Tewolde offers his thanks to Hacking Team for their help in getting a high value target.
Around the time the email was sent, which was eight months after the Prime Minister’s death, Tewolde had registered eight different MZF related domains. Given the context of the email and the sudden appearance (and disappearance) of the domains, it’s possible all of them were part of a Phishing campaign to access the target. Who the high value target is, remains unknown.

An invoice leaked with the Hacking Team cache shows that Ethiopia paid $1,000,000 Birr (ETB) for Hacking Team’s Remote Control System, professional services, and communications equipment.

There are emails from the likes of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, thanking the company for securing data about a high-value target.

Italian company called Hacking Team, which supplies intrusion and surveillance tools to governments and law enforcement agencies, has been hacked. The intruders have made off with 400GB of data which is now being leaked online.
The tranche of document reveals details about the company’s clients, along with passwords and details about the use of its products. So far, points out CSO, the list of clients includes:
Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, Nigeria, Sudan, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, United States, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Australia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxemburg, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE
Some of those countries have what could be referred to as dubious human rights regimes. The company has in the past denied working for Sudan, for instance, but an invoice for 480,000 Euros amongst the cache of files suggests otherwise. Elsewhere, there are emails from the likes of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, thanking the company for securing data about a high-value target.
In the U.S., documents suggest that the FBI had a maintenance contract with Hacking Team until June 30th 2015, while the Drug Enforcement Agency has a renewal in progress and work for the Department of Defense is listed as not active.
Worryingly, a cache of leaked passwords hints that standards aren’t that high at Hacking Team. Passwords recovered from the leaked documents include the likes of “HTPassw0rd”, “Passw0rd!81”, “Passw0rd”, “Passw0rd!”, “Pas$w0rd” and “Rite1.!!”. One wonders, perhaps, if a company with internal security like that should be let loose on the security of the world’s governments.
Sorce: Gizmodo & CSO

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