In another piece of news along the lines of hacking, the files obtained from a recent hack into Hacking Team shows that the bitcoin wallets may not be safe anymore. According to the leaked emails, the spyware company that supplies to governments and law enforcement agencies across the world has created “Money Module” that can access bitcoin wallets from a user’s phone or computer.
The Money Module feature has been added to the latest Remote Control System Suite version 9.2. The new feature will be available with the latest software update for existing users.
The internal emails discuss about the new feature which gains access to wallet.dat files in the infected devices and uses a malicious code like keylogger to get password details for bitcoin wallets. The wallet.dat file contains the wallet private key, which along with the password will allow the law enforcement agencies or anyone using the spyware to gain access to target’s bitcoin wallet. The Money Module can crack other altcoin wallets in a similar fashion.
It is speculated that the Money Module in Remote Control System software can also scan through the emails on target’s accounts to find more people. According to an email sent by one of the software architects from Hacking Team, the module for version 9.2 can track cryptocurrency transactions, access address book and track all transactions done using the wallet.
While the list of countries using the latest version of Remote Control System is not available, it is speculated that Egypt and Saudi Arabia are already using it to track bitcoin transactions. The email trails shows Egyptian Ministry of Defence and the Saudi Ministry of Interior had enquired about Money Module version 9.2 early last year itself.
In one of the internal emails, CEO of Hacking Team — David Vincenzetti has expressed that bitcoin doesn’t have a future anymore. While this news doesn’t come as a shocker, it is still sad to see the way governments are invading the privacy and rights of people around them