Sorry I should have been more clear too. I was trying to convey that the dev could have been paid off/threatened or it could be the work of a state actor or team of state actors under an alias. In one case they could care about their reputation but in the other maybe not.
By the sounds of it it was an organised social engineering attack. Almost certainly “Jia Tan” is not a real person, or if it is a real person then it’s a case of stolen identity. Even if I were being threatened to put a backdoor in some software I wouldn’t do it under my real name.
Certainly, that’s why I said organization to be vague.
Sorry I should have been more clear too. I was trying to convey that the dev could have been paid off/threatened or it could be the work of a state actor or team of state actors under an alias. In one case they could care about their reputation but in the other maybe not.
By the sounds of it it was an organised social engineering attack. Almost certainly “Jia Tan” is not a real person, or if it is a real person then it’s a case of stolen identity. Even if I were being threatened to put a backdoor in some software I wouldn’t do it under my real name.