Earlier this week, TLP reported that Australian law enforcement agencies were being given the right to secretly hack into any Australian’s Internet-connected computer and perform ‘remote searches’ in certain criminal cases.

Civil rights and free speech activists were outraged by the plan.

Now, leading Internet security vendors including Symantec (‘Norton’), Sophos and Kaspersky have stated that their security products would effectively block police hacking efforts in the same manner as they would any other attempts to breach customers’ systems.

Look for a spike in sales of Symantec (‘Norton’), Sophos and Kaspersky security suites in Australia.

The question of whether security vendors will ultimately cooperate with law enforcement agencies to allow legally-mandated hacks to bypass their security systems remains unresolved.