Hackers Tried to Blackmail Symantec Over Stolen Source Code

Regeneration · Posted by Regeneration on February 8th, 2012, 12:03 AM

An e-mail exchange revealing the extortion attempt posted to Pastebin today shows a purported Symantec employee named Sam Thomas negotiating payment with an individual named "Yamatough" to prevent the release of PCAnywhere and Norton Antivirus code. Yamatough is the Twitter identity of an individual or group that had previously threatened to release the source code for Norton Antivirus.

"We will pay you $50,000.00 USD total," Thomas said in an e-mail dated last Thursday. "However, we need assurances that you are not going to release the code after payment. We will pay you $2,500 a month for the first three months. Payments start next week. After the first three months you have to convince us you have destroyed the code before we pay the balance. We are trusting you to keep your end of the bargain."

Source: CNET News

07:39 PM

The hacker wasn't really blackmailing Symantec from what I read and heard.
Symantic offered money to make it look so, their sole intention was to identify the hacker.

You can never make sure your source code isn't released even after handing over the money.

also Symantic and the FBI are likely to work together.