Hacker Group YamaTough demanded $50,000 to keep symantec source code private. An e-mail exchange posted to Pastenbin revalng the coverse between Symantec employee named Sam Thomas and yamatough to prevent the release of PCAnywhere and Norton Antivirus code.
“We will pay you $50,000.00 USD total,” Thomas said in an e-mail dated Thursday. “However, we need assurances that you are not going to release the code after payment. We will pay you $2,500 a month for the first three months. Payments start next week. After the first three months you have to convince us you have destroyed the code before we pay the balance. We are trusting you to keep your end of the bargain.”
“In January an individual claiming to be part of the ‘Anonymous’ group attempted to extort a payment from Symantec in exchange for not publicly posting stolen Symantec source code they claimed to have in their possession. Symantec conducted an internal investigation into this incident and also contacted law enforcement given the attempted extortion and apparent theft of intellectual property. The communications with the person(s) attempting to extort the payment from Symantec were part of the law enforcement investigation. Given that the investigation is still ongoing, we are not going to disclose the law enforcement agencies involved and have no additional information to provide.”, said Symantec representative.
The company said the emails were in fact between the hacker and law enforcement officials posing as a Symantec employee.
“The communications with the person(s) attempting to extort the payment from Symantec were part of the law enforcement investigation,” company spokesman Cris Paden said, adding that no money was paid.
Symantec had previously confirmed the hacker, part of a group called Lords of Dharmaraja and affiliated with Anonymous, was in possession of source code for its products, obtained in a 2006 breach of the company’s networks.
A 1.27GB file labeled “Symantec’s pcAnywhere Leaked Source Code” has been posted to The Pirate Bay.
