Over the weekend, one of the most notorious and secretive security surveillance companies, Hacking Team, has been hacked and hundreds of Gigabytes of data that includes emails, source code and internal documents stolen.

It is not clear at this stage who hacked Hacking Team and more importantly, why. The attackers made sure that their intrusion would not go unnoticed by defacing the company's Twitter account and making public more than 400GB of content.

Hacking the hackers

This tactic would, in theory, allow the attackers to hide their tracks and proceed towards their real intended target(s), in what is likely to be a state of confusion and FUD for Hacking Team's clients.

The Italian company offers a wide range of services and tools, all aimed at helping organisations and governments, gather data on individuals. A lot of its clients are allegedly oppressive governments although the company has always maintained the opposite.

The hacked files show that Hacking Team counted customers from Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Lebanon, Mongolia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Sudan, Russia, UAE amongst those who had paid for its services.

The company's social accounts and website are no longer accessible.