Blackmail is a nasty business, but it’s not just the stuff of movie plots: Nokia was in 2008 forced to pay “several million euros” to criminals who held its code to ransom, reports Reuters.
The Finnish company found itself in difficulties six years ago, with criminals apparently threatening to reveal the source code “for part of an operating system used in its smartphones”. In fact, according to sources at Finnish MTV, they had obtained the encryption key for Symbian and were threatening to make it public.
It was enough to allow them to extort “several million euros” from Nokia. Like something straight out of Hollywood, Nokia apparently found itself agreeing to deliver the cash to a parking lot in Tampere, central Finland — although it did so only once it had alerted the police to what was happening.
Reuters claims that the money was picked up, but that the police “lost track of the culprits”. The Finnish police has confirmed to Reuters that it’s currently investigating a case of alleged blackmail against Nokia. The case remains open. [Reuters]
Picture: Nicola/Flickr