Who is Phineas Fisher, the elusive hacker never caught?
What's the story
Phineas Fisher, a notorious name in the hacking world, has never been caught. They first made headlines in August 2014 after hacking Gamma Group, the company behind the controversial FinFisher spyware. The attack was publicized through a Twitter account named @GammaGroupPR and resulted in the leak of sensitive data such as mobile spyware, product manuals, and a price list. Despite this major breach, FinFisher managed to survive and continue its operations.
Major breach
The Hacking Team hack
A year after the Gamma Group hack, Phineas Fisher struck again. This time, they targeted Hacking Team, another spyware maker.
The attack was much bigger than the last one and resulted in a massive data leak of over 400GB.
The stolen data included source code, internal emails, confidential contracts, and customer lists.
The leak exposed scandals in Ecuador, Mexico, and Panama and eventually led to Hacking Team's CEO David Vincenzetti selling his company for just one euro.
Political targets
Attacks on police union and Turkey's ruling party
Phineas Fisher also targeted the union of the Mossos d'Esquadra, Catalonia's police force.
The attack was accompanied by a post-mortem and a 39-minute tutorial video, in line with their anti-police stance.
Their next target was Turkey's ruling party under authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
This hack was motivated by solidarity with Rojava, a leftist autonomous region in northern and eastern Syria that Turkey was fighting against.
Final act
Last known attack and disappearance
Phineas Fisher's last known target was Cayman National Bank's branch in the Isle of Man, a self-governing island between England and Ireland.
The attack hinted at a different side of Phineas, who later launched the "Hacktivist Bug Bounty Program" to reward hacktivists exposing illegal/unethical activities by companies.
After this move, Phineas went silent with their Twitter and Reddit accounts deleted.
Despite investigations by Italian authorities into the Hacking Team hack, no evidence has been found pointing to Phineas's true identity.