Gemalto boss considers complaining over theft of encryption keys to ‘waste of time’

Complaining to the UK and US about the alleged theft of millions of encryption keys by government spies would be a 'waste of time', says the boss of the firm at the centre of the scandal.

Downplaying the scale of the theft, Olivier Piou, chief executive of Gemalto, said any legal action against the digital espionage by western agencies was destined to fail (See: US, UK intelligence agencies hacked into Sim card firm to steal codes).

However, his Franco-Dutch firm admitted that cyber spies were likely to have hacked into its computer systems to steal the codes, which protected the privacy of billions of mobile phone users.

The hack had already been slammed by privacy campaigners who told MailOnline today that the continued revelations of mass surveillance risked undermining the public's trust in communications technology.

According to Mike Harris, campaign director of the Don't Spy On Us Coalition, Gemalto's reticence over even complaining about the intrusion to its systems showed just how powerful digital spy agencies had become.

According to Harris, the fact that major corporations were now saying there was little point in attempting to protect their customers' privacy because the UK and US governments were going to invade it anyway was a shocking indictment of how widespread the surveillance of ordinary citizens had become.

Meanwhile, IANS reported that according to Gemalto, people tried to hack the digital security company on a regular basis, but were mostly unsuccessful.

Gemalto said the best counter-measures to these type of attacks were the systematic encryption of data when stored and in transit, the use of the latest SIM cards, and customised algorithms for each operator.

Gemalto led the world in digital security with 2013 annual revenues of €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) and had a workforce of over 12,000 employees operating out of 85 offices and 25 research and software development centres in 44 countries.