Hacking Team pledges to rebuild its products and start again

New surveillance software based on uncompromised code will be launched in autumn, claims founder and CEO David Vincenzetti

Controversial security company Hacking Team has pledged to rebuild its software from the ground up and to relaunch the business - with all-new software promised in just a couple of months

The pledge was made by founder and CEO David Vincenzetti, just over a week after the company's network was comprehensively cracked and almost all its data - including the source code of all its products - were dumped on the internet.

Vincenzetti said that the company had, perhaps belatedly, secured its systems and was rebuilding its network infrastructure in order to support the relaunch. "We have already isolated our internal systems so that additional data cannot be exfiltrated outside HackingTeam," said Vincenzetti.

He continued: "A totally new internal infrastructure is being [built] at this moment to keep our data safe. Of course, our top priority here has been to develop an update to allow our clients to quickly secure their current surveillance infrastructure. We expect to deliver this update immediately. This update will secure once again the ‘Galileo' version of Remote Control System."

He also claimed that, "important elements of our source code were not compromised in this attack, and remain undisclosed and protected".

According to Vincenzetti, the next version of the company's flagship Remote Control System (RCS) software - which enables its users to eavesdrop on targeted PCs and their users, typically compromised using zero-day flaws in software the target is running on their PC - will be launched in the autumn.

"RCS, version 10, will be released in the fall. This is a total replacement for the existing 'Galileo' system, not simply an update. Of course, it will include new elements to protection systems and data considering the impact of the attack against Hacking Team," the statement concluded.

Vincenzetti, interestingly enough, used to be a cyber-security activist. Indeed, he has been described as a "cyber punk" and likened to Julian Assange when he was younger.

In his forties, however, he shifted to the other side to sell software to governments around the world, including ones that target political dissidents, journalists and rights activists.

The relaunch, however, may be stymied by the discovery and imminent patching of a slew of flaws in Adobe Flash, which Hacking Team exploited on behalf of its clients in order to enable them to plant RCS onto their PCs.