Clues to Malaysia’s electronic surveillance from hacked commercial spyware provider

Leaked documents from Milan-based blackhat hacking company Hacking Team confirmed that the Malaysian government has been purchasing services from them. It also revealed that Hacking Team has been working with states like Sudan and Bahrain, among other countries that are known to target domestic political activists.

The Hacking Team write spyware and surveillance technology for governments, intelligence agencies and private corporations. Selling themselves as “[providing] effective, easy-to-use offensive technology to the worldwide law enforcement and intelligence communities”, Hacking Team provides software solutions for governments to spy on electronic devices and their users.

The Citizen Lab, a Canadian research institute concerned with electronic surveillance, documented how spyware from the Hacking Team assisted Ethiopia’s intelligence body target journalists based outside the country. As Human Rights Watch noted, there are definitely human rights concerns for activists in other countries that purchased contracts for Hacking Team’s software.

However, from Hacking Team’s own customer policy page, they disavow that human rights issues stemming from their software is a concern.

“We review potential customers before a sale to determine whether or not there is objective evidence or credible concerns that Hacking Team technology provided to the customer will be used to facilitate human rights…