Symantec offered $50,000 to source code hacker

In January, Symantec admitted that back in 2006, its servers were the victim of a cyber attack. The people responsible for the attack took the source code for a number of Symantec's security software products. Hackers who said they were associated with Anonymous threatened in January to release the source code. However, Symantec said that since the source code was so old, most of the products that are currently being used by customers were not in danger. The one exception was the PCAnywhere product which Symantec later updated with a patch.

Now there's word via News.com that Symantec, as part of a sting operation with law enforcement, attempted to find the people who wanted to release the source code by offering them money to not release the code. The story says that Symantec offered the hacker, who goes by the handle "Yamatough" $50,000 for not releasing the source code to the Internet.

The talks with "Yamatough" started in January and continued for weeks until negotiations broke down on Monday when the hacker or group of hackers demanded Symantec pay the money on the hacker's terms. Later that evening a file appeared on The Pirate Bay web site that was labeled "Symantec's pcAnywhere Leaked Source Code". Symantec has yet to confirm if that file is indeed genuine.