HackingTeam mobile, PC spyware for governments spans many countries
Newly released research has uncovered several hundred command-and-control servers across more than 40 countries powering controversial spyware sold to governments and law enforcement.
In addition, researchers found that the legal malware of Italian company HackingTeam is capable of spying on, and stealing data from, users of Android and Apple iOS devices. While suspected, such capabilities had not been proven previously.
Research teams from anti-virus vendor Kaspersky Lab and Citizen Lab, based at the Munk Centre for International Studies in the University of Toronto, presented their findings Tuesday at an event in London. The teams had collaborated on the research. The researchers identified a total of 326 C&C servers, with the largest number in the U.S., Kazakhstan and Ecuador. Who was behind the servers and whether they were being used in the countries where they were located was not known.
