Leaked Emails Detail How Spyware Could Track Your Bitcoin History

The spyware firm Hacking Team had already developed tools to track Bitcoin transactions by January of 2014.

A sticker on the window of a local pub indicates the acceptance of bitcoins for payment on April 11, in Berlin, Germany. More than 1,000 brick and mortar businesses accept it, so do more than 10,000 online merchants. Why? Because its transaction costs are much lower than other forms of payment, such as credit cards. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Is the government spying on your bitcoin spending habits? It’s more possible than you might think.

Documents leaked earlier this month in the data-breach that hit Hacking Team S.r.l., the Italy-based spyware firm, confirmed what many had suspected: authoritarian regimes were using spying software purchased from overseas to crack down on political dissenters.

But evidence of political repression wasn’t the only takeaway from the 400 GB trove of data leaked in the breach. The company was also selling tools to spy on how people use their bitcoins and other digital currencies.

Internal emails released in the breach indicate that Hacking Team’s premier product, the Remote Control System, got an upgrade in January 2014 that enables it to track “cryptocurrencies, such as BitCoin, and all the related information.”

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