Spanish spyware startup Mollitiam Industries shuts down | TechCrunch

Mollitiam Industries, a small and lesser-known Spanish spyware maker, is closing.

The Death of Startups Report first Through intelligence and surveillance of trade, this blames the company’s failure on financial problems. Public business records It was confirmed that the company filed for bankruptcy on January 23.

Different Hacker Team,,,,, NSO Group,Now Paragon SolutionsMollitiam Industries is headquartered in Toledo, a town outside Madrid, Spain, and is mainly operated by the public. To some extent, confidentiality is just the essence of the spyware industry: there are many suppliers around the world, and a large number of them do not want to promote.

Another reason Mollitiam Industries avoids publicity may be related to the spyware industry itself, and to the fact that spyware startups are based in Spain, which has not attracted the attention of international English-language media media. This is also because Mollitiam Industries is known to involve a scandal in Colombia, another place that is underrated in the English-speaking world.

Mollitiam Industries While Writing Official website Still online. The company did not respond to a request for comment sent to the email addresses listed on the website. The line is busy when TechCrunch lists the listed phone numbers in the company’s Google Maps list. according to Its official LinkedIn accountMollitiam Industries has 11 to 50 employees.

In 2021, Mollitiam Industries first attracted the attention of the English media. Wired reports at that time A brochure left by a third party inadvertently shows that the startup developed a visible spy product called “Invisible Man and Night-Oddler” that aims to secretly extract data from target devices, including telecommunications. and messaging apps such as WhatsApp, activate the device’s camera and mecropenone, as well as mecropenone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone, and mycorrotone. , and record keystrokes.

The year before, 2020 Columbia News Magazine Semana reports The journalists and offices of the country’s military intelligence agency have been under physical and digital surveillance from the country’s military intelligence agency, and its agents reportedly frightened journalists and threatened to send them tombstones. The magazine investigated alleged misconduct by officers in 2019, and the surveillance and intimidation campaign followed the magazine’s investigation.

“A Internet-wise colonel gave me 50 million pesos [around $15,000 at the time] A source told the magazine that it would introduce malware (virus) into Semana’s reporter’s computers to enable access to information.

The malware was apparently developed by Mollitiam Industries Photos based on the contract Between the Ejércitonacional de Colombia and the Mollitiam Industries.

The filing shows that the military agencies proposed nearly 3 billion pesos (about $900,000 at the time) to obtain a system called “Hombre Invisible” (or invisible person). The software is said to be able to remotely infect MacOS and Windows devices by hiding in office documents and via USB drives. Malware can also bypass antivirus software and allow officers to infect “unlimited” active targets.

“This tool allows us to do everything: go to any computer, access WhatsApp and Telegram web calls and conversations, download archived or deleted chat conversations, photos, and anything generally stored in infected machines,” an anonymous source told Semana.

Mollitiam Industries the same year as the Colombian scandal Make an online speech Through ISS World, a series of meetings for companies looking to sell products to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

The company wrote in the description of the conversation that end-to-end encryption makes it harder to eavesdrop on expected individuals, mentioning the need to use malware to compromise target devices to access their communications. According to the description“Mollitiam will explain the roots of this approach through software demonstrations and will share innovative features such as recordings of WhatsApp VoIP calls.”

According to META, Mollitiam Industries has remained active until at least the end of 2023. Early 2024, Yuan It says in the report It deleted the fake account network on Facebook and Instagram related to Mollitiam Industries.

“Mollitiam Industries and its customers operate fake accounts that they use to test malicious features and scratch public information in their own accounts. Similar to other surveillance companies, they use IP-Logging links designed to track the target’s IP address. “They are also engaged in phishing and social engineering that targets the people of Spain, Colombia and Peru, including political opposition, journalists, anti-corruption activists and activists against police abuse.”

Spain, especially Barcelona, Recently, it has become a hotbed for spyware startupssome of which were founded by foreigners, recruited security researchers from other countries, including Italy and Israel.

Even though the company has received relatively little attention, Amnesty International’s activities are tracking. Jurre van Bergen, a technologist at Amnesty International Security Lab, told TechCrunch that he and his colleagues found Windows samples from Mollitiam Industries and identified the command and control server indexed on Censys, a type of Internet-connected device. Online search engines, for “for”, for “invisible person login”, clearly quote the products of one of the companies.

“The extremely hasty work of spyware manufacturers is not behind the firewall,” Van Bergen told TechCrunch. “I don’t think I’m surprised given their hasty work went bankrupt.”