The private Italian spyware firm Hacking Team has become the victim of a hack itself, with more than 400GB of data compromised and released via a torrent. The hacker "PhineasFisher"– who claims responsibility for the data heist – is also responsible for surveillance tech company Gamma International based in the UK. One of the most damaging aspects of the hack so far has been the revealing of Hacking Team's customers, which include private corporations, as well as nation states, including the FBI. Journalists and others have been downloading the data and pouring through details. Wired published an article outlining how the FBI had spent $775K on Hacking Team's "Remote Control System" software. A number of other countries were also listed as customers, many of which have repressive authoritarian regimes. In addition to information on customers, the data dump included emails, source code, credentials and documents revealing details about how the company operates. The company's Twitter account was hijacked for 12 hours and the hacker(s) sent out tweets with pieces of the data that was stolen.
