Decade-Old Espionage Malware Found Targeting Government Computers

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.'"

Comments

decade long op!?

[TaoPhoenix]

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!?

[erroneus]

Suspiscious based on what criteria?

1. We aren't allowed to use open source and so we have to "trust" every 'signed binary' which executives and leaders want to use. If we could use open source, we could at least read the source and even compile it to ensure the source we read was the binary which was compiled.

2. When the malware doesn't do "harm" to anything, the symtoms of malware are non-existant. No pop-up ads, no unusual crashing (see note about being unable to use open source... the 'other' operaitng system crashes often enough for inexplicable reasons that no one suspects malware as the cause any longer) and when a commonly used utility program which performs remote access is used, how can it be detected as malware?

Arguably, that it was proprietary and commercial software which was exploited is pretty disturbing. But at the same time, that software makers (and other device and product makers, and service providers too) frequently enter into deals with government to spy on people is unfortunately very common. That the "white-hat" (heh, I accidentally typed "white-hate"... apropos?) nation called the USA has compromised global communications with Echelon and more recently with the much celebrated NSA wiretapping, does not help matters.

I think no one appreciates the value of trust. Once it's lost, it's lost. What amount of trust in government... any government... may have existed, it is gone for most of us. The unenlightened? Well... they still watch MSM (mainstream media, I have come to know these initials). What hope have they against that?

Re:decade long op!?

[Anonymous Coward]

the 'other' operaitng system crashes often enough for inexplicable reasons that no one suspects malware as the cause any longer)

- would like to know what OS is this, cause my windows 7 install is rock-solid since I installed it on 2011...

Re:decade long op!?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:decade long op!?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 90s called,

Did you warn them?

Re:decade long op!?

[erroneus]

I'll respond to this but not to the others.

That YOUR instance works great is fine. My instance also works flawlessly. The problem is often blamed on "third party software." Great. While the actual cause may actually be third party software as is demonstrable by the removal of (or omission of in a system reload) that doesn't escape the fact that the OS itself is vulnerable to 3rd party software crashing the OS. This is a kind of important rule of a good OS not to be vulnerable to 3rd party software causing it to crash.

And here's a great example of what I mean: In the past, I have had my laptop running Linux fail. The video chip failed. But I had applications and processes running in the background which I didn't want interrupted. So what did I do?

I was able to SSH into the machine which was STILL RUNNING despite the fact that the video was completely out. I was able to monitor the progress of the software and shut it down without problem, then shut down the computer as well. I was hoping it was some sort of [proprietary] software glitch in the driver, but alas, the video chip had died and I could get no video from the display or from the VGA port. The machine had to be replaced.

Now I ask you this. If this were Windows, would a video driver failure, especially one which started as a hardware failure, do you think the machine would have continued running or do you think the whole machine would have been taken down with it? (Rhetorical question, we all know the answer.) So now I point out that if other OSes can withstand hardware failures by crashing only the affected components (in this case, my X session was killed and the applications running under X also killed) why doesn't Windows? And if the OS on common PC hardware is capable of this level of resilience, why is Windows not? I get that speed and power and blah-blah-blah are imporant... on DESKTOP machines. But the problem is that Microsoft took a desktop OS and uses it as a server OS. Arguably, you can say that's not true -- the NT kernel was intended to be used for servers and stuff like that. Okay great. It still falls short. Drivers live in ring-0 and they don't (all) need to be running there.

I have argued this point numerous times with the same failing arguments presented. At the end of the day x86 hardware, when running a properly engineered OS, can compartmentalize all peripheral devices to the point that a crash on any given controller or whatever, will not crash the whole OS. I have experienced this often enough in Linux to know this works nicely. (I once had a vmware guest running Linux and had the storage fail... the damned thing kept running and when I SSH'd into the machine, it showed me HDD controller failures and stuff. It was pretty awesome.) So once again, WHY NOT WINDOWS?! Why can 3rd party software, whether they are drivers or applications, crash the damned OS?!

Re:decade long op!?

[erroneus]

interesting you think their market share is due to sufficient quality.

Re:How many of these could be out there?

[Anonymous Coward]

How would we really know?

Which part of "Microsoft product" did you not understand?

Re:Do YOU mean "this other operating system"?

[myowntrueself]

Please, just cut to the chase and tell us how MyCleanPC will fix everything for us.

Re:A strong push for open source in government

[jader3rd]

With open source you can check for the existence of such pathways, easily.

Your statement kind of assumes that every little shop can afford someone so deeply intimate with C++, and every known security hole that it is "easy" for them to check. It is certainly not easy for the vast majority of places to crack open the source code and go "oh look, a hole!".