Windows Flaw Allowed Hackers To Spy On NATO, Ukraine, Others

An anonymous reader writes: Reuters reports that a cybersecurity firm has found evidence that a bug in Microsoft's Windows operating system has allowed hackers located in Russia to spy on computers used by NATO, Ukraine, the European Union, and others for the past five years. Before disclosing the flaw, the firm alerted Microsoft, who plans to roll out a fix on Tuesday. "While technical indicators do not indicate whether the hackers have ties to the Russian government, Hulquist said he believed they were supported by a nation state because they were engaging in espionage, not cyber crime. For example, in December 2013, NATO was targeted with a malicious document on European diplomacy. Several regional governments in the Ukraine and an academic working on Russian issues in the United States were sent tainted emails that claimed to contain a list of pro-Russian extremist activities, according to iSight."

Comments

I wonder how long the NSA

[wiredog]

has had this one on the shelf, without disclosing it?

Re:I wonder how long the NSA

[TheRaven64]

That's the real question. And again, the NSA needs to answer the following question:

Were they sufficiently technically incompetent that they didn't discover an attack that the Russians have been using, or were they sufficiently inept in a more general intelligence sense that they didn't realise that leaving US and allied machines vulnerable might be a problem?

Re:I wonder how long the NSA

[king neckbeard]

Since the security of Microsoft systems became a significant factor in national security. Perhaps they could shift their efforts of illegally tipping off DEA agents into security audits of software vital to our infrastructure, since that would actually protect the security of the nation.