Bulgaria’s National Security Agency Studied Option to Purchase Spyware from Hacking Team Mind the horns!

The company Hacking Team, which is blacklisted by Reporters Without Borders for the sale of spyware to authoritarian regimes, had a meeting and presentation of its products in Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security (DANS) in late November last year.

This became clear from leaked documents from the internal mail of Hacking Team. Bivol has access to them due to its partners from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

A product for hacking and installing a virus on phones with Android OS from different operating systems has been presented. DANS also expected from Hacking Team to show them how to hack iPhone 6.

A few months after the presentation, an employee of the National Security Agency replied that he hoped to have a budget for future cooperation with Hacking Team.

The Hacking Team spyware acts as a virus and allows remote control of infected computers and phones, including stealing passwords and monitoring over the webcam and recording all actions of the user.

Until now it was known that DANS uses similar software, called FinSpy, of the companies DreamLab and Gamma. Wikileaks published documents which showed that Bulgaria is a market for these products. Furthermore, the software has been installed on the server of the former Ministry of Public Administration, as the study of Citizen Lab has revealed.

Bivol continues to examine the documents leaked from Hacking Team and will publish everything on the relations of the company with the Bulgarian authorities.

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