TrustCor Systems is a popular website verification company that is used by many major browsers to ensure security, but new revelations indicate that it might be working with US intelligence agencies to spy on unsuspecting users. The Washington Post recently published an explosive expose that shed some light on the matter at hand, and it drew from numerous documents and data along with interviews of people who are currently working in the cybersecurity space.
All of the biggest browsers in the world including Chrome and Firefox rely on TrustCor for certifying sites as being safe to use. In spite of the fact that this is the case records have shown that this company has links to another enterprise known as Packet Forensics which helped the US government to spy on people by intercepting their communication.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that Mozilla has now demanded an answer from Trustcor and is considering suspending working with them for the foreseeable future. While TrustCor is still asserting that they do not work with intelligence agencies or any government entities, these revelations are certainly quite damning and they might make the company less trustworthy than might have been the case otherwise.
Browsers like Firefox have a reputation for being secure, with some considering them to be privacy tools in their own right. Reports like this can be harmful because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making users less able to trust these browsers, and this is creating a PR firestorm that might not abate for a good long while.
Packet Forensics used TrustCor to as well as its MsgSafe software to intercept encrypted data. The excuse given was that this was being done to catch potential terrorists, but it’s not hard to imagine that the US government wouldn’t use this to spy on its own people. There have been many indications that the US government does this all the time, so it won’t be surprising if this turns out to be true.
Read next: Chrome Hackers Are Getting Paid for Keeping up the Security
All of the biggest browsers in the world including Chrome and Firefox rely on TrustCor for certifying sites as being safe to use. In spite of the fact that this is the case records have shown that this company has links to another enterprise known as Packet Forensics which helped the US government to spy on people by intercepting their communication.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that Mozilla has now demanded an answer from Trustcor and is considering suspending working with them for the foreseeable future. While TrustCor is still asserting that they do not work with intelligence agencies or any government entities, these revelations are certainly quite damning and they might make the company less trustworthy than might have been the case otherwise.
Browsers like Firefox have a reputation for being secure, with some considering them to be privacy tools in their own right. Reports like this can be harmful because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making users less able to trust these browsers, and this is creating a PR firestorm that might not abate for a good long while.
Packet Forensics used TrustCor to as well as its MsgSafe software to intercept encrypted data. The excuse given was that this was being done to catch potential terrorists, but it’s not hard to imagine that the US government wouldn’t use this to spy on its own people. There have been many indications that the US government does this all the time, so it won’t be surprising if this turns out to be true.
Read next: Chrome Hackers Are Getting Paid for Keeping up the Security
