Milan prosecutors placed six
former HackingTeam employees and freelancers under investigation
on charges of abusive computer system access and revealing
industrial secrets.
The probe comes after company founder David Vincenzetti
reported them for allegedly accessing proprietary software
development code in 2014.
HackingTeam provides surveillance programs to governments
around the world.
Vincenzetti reported his former employees two months ago.
Investigators are probing possible connections between the
former staffers and a hacking attack the company suffered on
July 6, when unknowns posted proprietary software on the Web.
HackingTeam last week announced it had come under attack
and said that it lost control of its Remote Control System (RCS)
spy program.
"It is now apparent that a major threat exists because of
the posting by cyber criminals of HackingTeam proprietary
software on the Internet the night of July 6," the company said.
"HackingTeam's investigation has determined that sufficient
code was released to permit anyone to deploy the software
against any target of their choice.
"Terrorists, extortionists and others can deploy this
technology at will if they have the technical ability to do so.
We believe this is an extremely dangerous situation," the
company said in a statement.
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