Spanish firm charged with selling ‘poison-ware’

Three managers of a Spanish software provider have been arrested after allegedly selling poisoned software to over 1000 customers over 12 years.

According to El Pais, the un-named company was selling bespoke software to small and medium size business clients, which contained ‘errors programmed to fail on a specific date.’ The client would then have to contact the company for technical support and if they didn’t have a service contract, they’d have to pay or be coerced in to purchasing a contract.

The Spanish Guardia also said that those customers who did not purchase a contract would have further errors programmed in to their system to be introduced at a later date.

The alleged scam was reported anonymously and has led to the creation of Operation Cordoba – a multi-agency drive to target cybercrime in a number of Spanish provinces.