Nokia Paid Millions to Blackmailer, Police Didn’t Help

It became known that a few years ago, Nokia has paid millions of euro to a hacker who threatened to disclose an encryption key of the Symbian phones. Journalists revealed that seven years ago Nokia became a target of extortion and was forced to pay several millions of euro in ransom.

Back in 2007, half of the smartphones in the world were made by Nokia and ran on Symbian. When the company paid the money, the hackers promised that the key would not be misused. Although it is not known exactly how the key ended up in the hands of the blackmailers, the security experts believe that it is fairly likely it was hacked.

The tech giant reported the matter to the police, and the cops began their investigation of the case. In the meantime, the company made the ransom payment in the Finnish city of Tampere – cash was left in a bag at a parking lot nearby an amusement park.

However, the drop off was botched – the blackmailer successfully got the bag, and the police just lost track of him – though it is a strange thing they just failed to track a bag with millions of euros just as if it were a common purse with a wallet containing a hundred bucks. They never found the hacker, and so the case is still considered unsolved. The only good thing here is that the blackmailer did honor the agreement, and the key was never revealed.