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German Government's Malware Analyzed
First time accepted submitter lennier1 writes "The German hacker group CCC (Chaos Computer Club) has analyzed a piece of malware the German government uses in criminal investigations to spy on a suspect's computer. I'm sure we're all surprised that it's opening security holes for third parties, and violates a related court verdict (and several laws in general)."
Yes. It contains filedropper functionality. Like most malware, it can download and execute additional applications thereby extending its functionality and it can place documents on the infected PC.
The Chaos Computer Club is probably not adequately characterized as a 'hacker group'. It was founded in 1981 as a computer club and, while hacking has always been their most prominent activity, they have grown not only into a nation-wide association of about 3000 members, but into an influential civil rights organization as well. Their expertise in matters of IT security is frequently called upon by public media in Germany. The CCC is well respected even by many politicians and their expertise was cited more than once by former Ferderal Minister of the Interior Gerhart Baum during the trial that ended last year with the Verfassungsgericht (federal constitutional court)'s finding that the federal anti-terror law that obliged providers to retain all telecommunications data for six months was unconstitutional. The CCC organizes the annual Chaos Communication Congress that Slashdot readers might remember as being the event where some major hacks were presented to the public: http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/01/02/0231242/detailing-the-security-risks-in-pdf-standard http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/12/29/204253/Playstation-3-Code-Signing-Cracked-For-Good http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/12/28/1931256/gsm-decryption-published http://games.slashdot.org/story/05/12/16/2157217/hacking-the-xbox The CCC is also well know for Project Blinkenlights, which grew out of the CCC but is now an independent project.