On Sunday, while most of Twitter was watching the Women's World Cup – an amazing game from start to finish – one of the world's most notorious security firms was being hacked.

Note: This story is the first of two on the Hacking Team incident. A follow-up has been posted here. In addition, a curated slideshow of visuals from the hack is also available.

Specializing in surveillance technology, Hacking Team is now learning how it feels to have their internal matters exposed to the world, and privacy advocates are enjoying a bit of schadenfreude at their expense.

Hacking Team is an Italian company that sells intrusion and surveillance tools to governments and law enforcement agencies.