The hacker who humiliated spyware makers and was never caught

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Over the past fewer decades, respective mysterious hackers person captured the public’s imagination, but nary rather similar Phineas Fisher. A decennary aft their astir celebrated hack, Phineas remains, by astir accounts, the astir prolific and nationalist hacker never to have been caught.

As portion of our bid on the biggest cybersecurity mysteries of each time, we’re delving into the enigma of Phineas, the hacktivist who hacked arguable spyware makers FinFisher and Hacking Team. The latter, an Italian startup, was among the archetypal to crook government spyware into a viable planetary business, paving the mode for spyware makers specified arsenic the Israeli NSO Group. Phineas’ hack against Hacking Team eventually led to the startup’s demise years later.

Apart from Anonymous, an amorphous amalgam of hacktivists with a mixed track record of mostly stunt hacks designed to stitchery publicity alternatively than person existent impact, Phineas is perhaps the most well-known hacktivist successful history. Their communicative is made of awesome hacks and endless unanswered questions.

Who is Phineas Fisher?

Variously called an anarchist, a cybercriminal, a hacktivist, and a vigilante, the hacker has said they “use a batch of antithetic names” for antithetic hacking escapades.

The hacks we cognize astir were large capable to crook Phineas into a fable among hackers. “I would similar to conscionable Phineas Fisher truthful that I could bargain them a seven-course, three-Michelin-star meal determination and perceive to them explicate however they turned Hacking Team wrong retired similar a gym sock,” a well-known information researcher erstwhile wrote connected Twitter. There’s even a song astir them.

Phineas first emerged in August 2014, erstwhile they announced they had hacked Gamma Group, the makers of the FinFisher spyware — which is wherever the nickname comes from. They publicized the hack via a Twitter account cheekily called @GammaGroupPR, leaking stolen information including mobile spyware, merchandise manuals, and a terms list. The harm was limited, and FinFisher carried on. Phineas published a post-mortem that doubled arsenic a leftist manifesto, past vanished.

A twelvemonth later, they came backmost with a bang, hacking Hacking Team, different spyware maker. They took practically everything: much than 400 gigabytes including root code, tens of thousands of interior emails, confidential contracts, and lawsuit lists. The leak allowed journalists to uncover scandals successful Ecuador, Mexico, and Panama. Years later, Hacking Team’s CEO David Vincenzetti was forced to merchantability his institution for 1 euro. For immoderate erstwhile employees, Phineas’ hack was the beginning of the end.

Phineas went connected to hack the union of the Mossos d’Esquadra, which is the constabulary unit of Catalonia, publishing a post-mortem and a 39-minute tutorial video — accordant with their stated anti-police ideals. Their next victim was the ruling enactment of Turkey’s authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a hack motivated by solidarity with Rojava, a leftist autonomous portion successful bluish and eastbound Syria that Turkey was warring against.

Phineas’ past known unfortunate was Cayman National Bank’s subdivision successful the Isle of Man, a self-governing land betwixt England and Ireland. The hack hinted astatine a antithetic broadside of Phineas. “I look for amerciable ways to marque wealth successful bid to escaped my clip truthful I tin bash thing utile with it. Once I had that figured out, I started scaling it up and making much wealth than I request and giving the other away,” Phineas said in an interview with activistic Freddy Martinez. (Phineas donated astatine least $10,000 successful Bitcoin to Rojava.)

Phineas kept the hack — which happened successful 2016 — quiescent for 3 years aboriginal earlier announcing the “Hacktivist Bug Bounty Program,” an initiative to reward hacktivists who exposure companies’ amerciable and unethical activities. When Cayman National Bank confirmed the hack, it claimed it “was amongst a fig of banks targeted.” Phineas confirmed they had been hacking respective banks for years.

That was their past nationalist appearance. Their Twitter and Reddit accounts person agelong since been deleted, leaving nary online trail. FinFisher never contacted instrumentality enforcement, according to a erstwhile institution employee. The Italian authorities’ probe into the Hacking Team hack ended without uncovering immoderate evidence pointing to Phineas’ existent identity. What I tin say, from my ain reporting, is that Phineas is alive and good — they person been successful interaction with maine wrong the past mates of years.

So who is Phineas Fisher? Taking their claims astatine look value, they’re a hacktivist with anarchist ideals, but besides a cybercriminal. Could they alternatively beryllium a fabricated persona controlled by a spy bureau — Russia, say, which has a past of inventing hacktivists to muddy the waters aft its ain hacks? Phineas has denied being a Russian spy, and it’s unclear wherefore Moscow would spell aft each of Phineas’ chosen targets.

Their origins are arsenic murky. Phineas has name-dropped Spanish-speaking anarchists, wrote the Hacking Team post-mortem successful Spanish, and followed numerous Latin American leftist accounts connected Twitter. They told maine their archetypal connection is neither English nor Spanish, though they person acknowledged surviving successful a Spanish-speaking country. It’s all worthy taking with a atom of salt. “Everything I accidental that contains clues astir my individuality is fractional trolling,” Phineas erstwhile told me. “I’m successful the wont of saying misinformation.”

It’s also imaginable that the Phineas persona was passed astir betwixt 2014 and 2019 and utilized by antithetic individuals. But determination is nary grounds of that, and aft 10 years of conversations, my gut says Phineas truly is the hacktivist they assertion to be.