'Old School' Hackers Attack European Governments Using 'MiniDuke' Malware 48
puddingebola writes "The Guardian reports that hackers have been targeting officials from over 20 European governments with a new piece of malware called 'MiniDuke.' 'The cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, which discovered MiniDuke, said the attackers had servers based in Panama and Turkey – but an examination of the code revealed no further clues about its origin (PDF). Goverments targeted include those of Ireland, Romania, Portugal, Belgium and the Czech Republic. The malware also compromised the computers of a prominent research foundation in Hungary, two thinktanks, and an unnamed healthcare provider in the US.' Eugene Kaspersky says it's an unusual piece of malware because it's reminiscent of attacks from two decades ago. 'I remember this style of malicious programming from the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s. I wonder if these types of malware writers, who have been in hibernation for more than a decade, have suddenly awoken and joined the sophisticated group of threat actors active in the cyber world.' The computers were corrupted through an Adobe PDF attachment to an email."
Re:emailed pdf, say it ain't so! (Score:2, Insightful)
They would have been protected if they had been using Chromebooks.
Within the next 5 years, probably 75% of the world will move to this safer platform and finally most hacks will be gone.
Only power users will still be using full-on PCs.
One decade ago (Score:4, Insightful)
Eugene Kaspersky says it's an unusual piece of malware because it's reminiscent of attacks from two decades ago. 'I remember this style of malicious programming from the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s.
Unless I've been asleep for a very long time, the late 90s/early 00s is one decade ago.