The plot thickens: Malaysia government’s extensive contact with Hacking Team

The full trove of documents from Italy’s commercial spyware provider Hacking Team is now online. From the invoices sent by the Hacking Team to Miliserv Technologies, the Shah Alam based entity that seem to be the Putrajaya’s channel, there was large investment in surveillance technology in 2013. There were concerns from civil society groups and overseas observers about the Malaysian government’s repressive stance during that period, an election year.

Perhaps this was no surprise, as The Verge wrote about Wikileak’s efforts to track spyware contractors and Malaysia was on the itinerary for Gemma International and Hacking Team. According to Wikileaks, Hacking Team visited Malaysia in December 2011 and then for a longer period in March 2013.

Hacking Team had a good reason to visit Malaysia, given that Malaysia has spent around 1.86 million Euros on their catalogue and sits as one of their top 10 customers.

Not a complete list of Hacking Team’s customers

The December 2011 visit tied into the purchase of Remote Control System (RCS) software for the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), via Miliserv. This was not the only link however, there was a bill for 10 thousand Euros in 2010.