Last year, a hacker using the alias “PhineasFisher” breached controversial surveillance tool developer Gamma International, a British-German company that sells the FinFisher spyware software, and then leaked over 40GB of data from the company, which has been criticized for selling such software to repressive governments.
It appears that the same hacker claimed responsibility for the breach of Hacking Team, an Italian tech company that sells a similar product called the Remote Controlled System Galileo.
“I am the same person.”
On Sunday night, Motherboard spoke with him while monitoring the Hacking Team Twitter account via direct message.
Initially, PhineasFisher responded sarcastically, saying he was willing to chat because “we featured his latest story so well!”, referring to a recent story written by the company’s CEO claiming to be able to “crack” the Dark Web.
But then he claimed to be PhineasFisher. To prove it, he told me he would use the account he used the previous year to promote the FinFisher hack.
“I’m the same person,” he said shortly after PhineasFisher’s account had been inactive for a year.
The hacker, however, refused to answer any questions.
