Nokia Once Paid Millions In Ransom To Hackers To Protect Its Awful Operating System

Nokia Paid Millions In Ransom To Protect OS Everyone Hated

In 2007 Nokia paid millions in ransom to a hacker who had gained access to their Symbian operating system.

This incredible true story came to light after Finnish news organisation MTV discovered that Nokia had been the victim of severe extortion when a hacker had gained the encryption key needed to install apps on Symbian.

If the encryption key had got into the wild Nokia would have lost control of its own app store, unable to authenticate apps that were being installed on the phones.

With the hacker threatening to share the key with the world Nokia agreed to pay a ransom of several million Euros, leaving the money in a briefcase at a parking lot in the Finnish city of Tampere.

Astonishingly the hacker's plan had worked, not only did he disappear with the money but the Finish police have never been able to track him, leaving Nokia out of pocket.

Nokia at the time had little choice but to cooperate, in 2007 half the smartphones sold in the world were made by Nokia with a large percentage of them running Symbian.

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