Cyberespionage For Everyone 44
Mephistophocles writes "A chilling article by Darkreading's Kelly Jackson Higgins describes how the growing accessibility of hacking tools like RATs (Remote Access Trojans) have made cyber-espionage possible for more than just those financially backed by large nation-states, and speculates on what the implications of this may be: 'Researchers at Norman Security today revealed that they recently analyzed malware used in phishing emails targeting Israeli and Palestinian targets and found that attackers used malware based on the widely available Xtreme RAT crimeware kit. The attacks, which first hit Palestinian targets, this year began going after Israeli targets, including Israeli law enforcement agencies and embassies around the world. Norman says the same attacker is behind the attacks because the attacks use the same command-and-control (C&C) infrastructure, as well as the same phony digital certificates. This attack campaign just scratches the surface of the breadth and spread of these types of attacks around the world as more players have been turning to cyberspying. "We're just seeing the tip of the iceberg," says Einar Oftedal, deputy CTO at Norman.'"
Amazing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Norman Security is not only still around as a company, but they're now regarded as a news source.
"Growing Accessibility" (Score:5, Insightful)
Did everyone already forget freely available rats like Sub7, BO and NetBus that used to be around in the late 90ies?
Really that prolific? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Who "imagined" that malware activity was not that "prolific"? Did they just defrost those "researchers"?. Seems like these folks are the only ones surprised by the existence of script-kiddies, hackers in the Middle-East, the extent of Chinese state-sponsored cyber-espionage, and the growing hacker communities in Brasil and other emerging nations. Globalization => globalization of hacking. Who would have imagined that....
And the article links to another one ("Scope Of APTs More Widespread Than Thought" ) that goes on:
"There's a lot of cyberespionage happening internationally. This is not going to go away," Kaspersky's Schouwenberg says.
Gee, thanks for the eye-opening, completely obvious, self-evident statement, Shouwie, Here's a question: do you experts stay constantly tuned with what's happening in the world, or do you just wake up one day, burst out of the bubble where you were busy "imagining" things, and discover reality?
"... growing accessibility of... RATs..." (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude. This was news before Slashdot existed.