Decade-Old Espionage Malware Found Targeting Government Computers 69
alancronin writes "Researchers have unearthed a decade-long espionage operation that used the popular TeamViewer remote-access program and proprietary malware to target high-level political and industrial figures in Eastern Europe. TeamSpy, as the shadow group has been dubbed, collected encryption keys and documents marked as 'secret' from a variety of high-level targets, according to a report published Wednesday by Hungary-based CrySyS Lab. Targets included a Russia-based Embassy for an undisclosed country belonging to both NATO and the European Union, an industrial manufacturer also located in Russia, multiple research and educational organizations in France and Belgium, and an electronics company located in Iran. CrySyS learned of the attacks after Hungary's National Security Authority disclosed intelligence that TeamSpy had hit an unnamed 'Hungarian high-profile governmental victim.'"
decade long op!? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's rather disturbing - that the best defense that money can buy failed to pick up a spy op for an entire decade!! I don't even know what to make of this news. Do you SysAdmin types out there have some input? Wouldn't you have noticed suspicious activity *sometime* sooner than a decade?
Re:decade long op!? (Score:2, Interesting)
The initial argument was invalid. Just because something does not crash means absolutely nothing security-wise. HP-UX was long considered a "rock-solid" operating system until sombody discovered you could crash entire HPUX servers by sending an "oversized" ping packet from a random Windows machine.
Stuxnet was possible because Windows security is abysmal.