Elite spies used leaked Hacking Team code to learn techniques and hide attacks

Highly sophisticated hackers are poaching components from a leaked library of exploits originally created by infamous Italian spyware maker Hacking Team — even though tools built with this copied code could be detected by basic antivirus products. Cybersecurity experts are confounded by the decision to include this code in the elite hackers’ malware, especially given that some groups adopting the material are conceivably capable of developing more evasive and effective exploits on their own. “To be honest, it doesn’t really make much sense,” said Cylance Director of Threat Intelligence Jon Gross. “This one sort of puzzled us … while you might see the criminal underground doing this, I wouldn’t immediately suspect an APT.” A mysterious, self-described black hat hacker named Phineas Phisher breached Hacking Team in 2015 and posted a trove of internal company documents and other data online. Some of the company’s exploits — like those that can compromise more recent […]

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