Nokia paid millions to prevent criminals from leaking Symbian source code

Finnish telecoms equipment company Nokia  made payments of millions of euros to criminals who threatened to reveal the source code for part of its smartphone operating system Symbian some six years ago, Finnish TV station MTV revealed Tuesday.

Confirming the report, police told Reuters, that they were investigating a case of alleged blackmail and that the case was still open.

According to detective chief inspector Tero Haapala, they were investigating the felony blackmail with Nokia the injured party, though he declined to give further details.

According to MTV, the blackmailers had acquired the encryption key for a core part of Nokia's Symbian software and threatened to make it public.