Symbian encryption keys were once held for ransom, Nokia paid millions

Long before the era of Windows Phone, or even the iPhone, Nokia was king of the mobile phone industry as a whole, and more than half of the smartphone market on top of that.



Nokia’s smartphones were run by the Symbian operating system. In 2007, during the time when Nokia was offering devices like the E61i, and the N95, a blackmailer managed to acquire the encryption key to the operating system, a file only a few kilobytes in size.



How the code was acquired has not been revealed, but the blackmailer extorted Nokia for millions of euros on the threat of releasing the key in the open. ...