Hackers Attempted $50,000 from Symantec for anti-virus blueprint
The companionship enunciated the emails were in fact between the hacker and law enforcement officials positioning equally a Symantec employee.
“The communications with the person(s) attempting to extort the payment from Symantec were part of the law enforcement investigation,” society spokesman Cris Paden said, adding that no money was paid.
Paden declined to cite the law enforcement agency, locution it may compromise the investigation.
Symantec had previously confirmed the hacker, share of a grouping called Lords of Dharmaraja and affiliated with Anonymous, was in possession of source code for its products, obtained in a 2006 breach of the company’s networks.
An email commutation released by the hacker, who is known as YamaTough and claims to exist based in Mumbai, India, shows drawn-out negotiations with a purported Symantec employee starting on January 18.
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The email negotiations echoed conversations in past years, regarded by Reuters, in which police agencies manoeuvered talks between victims and hackers.
“We can’t pay you $50,000 at formerly for the reasons we discussed previously,” enunciated333 one email from a purported Symantec employee Sam Thomas, who offered to salary the full total at a later date.
“In exchange, you will construct a public command on behalf of your group that you lied virtually the hack.”
The hacker enunciated he never intended to take the money and warned he would shortly release the blueprints for Symantec’s pcAnywhere and Norton antivirus products.
“We tricked them into offer us a bribe thence we could humiliate them,” YamaTough said Reuters.
In recent weeks, the hacker has posted segments of code for Norton Utilities and other programs. A software maker’s intellectual property, specifically its generator code, is its near precious asset.
Symantec’s Norton Internet Security is among the about popular software available to block viruses, spyware, and online identity theft.
Symantec pronounced the version of the source code in the hacker’s possession from 2006 no longer set a threat to its customers even if the full blueprint to the software is released.
After the hack was made public in January, Symantec taken its customers to temporarily disable pcAnywhere. It subsequently declared it safe to use after offer free upgrades.