Regin Malware In EU Attack Linked To US and British Intelligence Agencies

Advocatus Diaboli writes The Regin malware, whose existence was first reported by the security firm Symantec on Sunday, is among the most sophisticated ever discovered by researchers. Symantec compared Regin to Stuxnet, a state-sponsored malware program developed by the U.S. and Israel to sabotage computers at an Iranian nuclear facility. Sources familiar with internal investigations at Belgacom and the European Union have confirmed to The Intercept that the Regin malware was found on their systems after they were compromised, linking the spy tool to the secret GCHQ and NSA operations.

Comments

How will I explain this to my children

[Trachman]

On NSA website, NSA states about their values: " We will protect national security interests by adhering to the highest standards of behavior".

So how NSA would be able to explain to a child that computer virus and malware represent the highest standard of behavior.

It is probably the same as stealing money on the street from slightly overweight person and telling him/her, that you need to lose weight anyway and that the robber cares about you. If questioned, street robber will counter stating that the victim should be thankful, because in other streets (countries) you could be shot for even questioning.

Is vulnerable and weakened by NSA encryption is also "highest standard of behavior", dear beavers from NSA?

Re:How will I explain this to my children

[rtb61]

The other question is what is the NSA really doing with all this information especially as they have been known to target 'ALL' foreign politicians and of course have a publicly stated penchant for extortion. How many countries democracies have been derailed of late by naughty foreign politicians being caught and yet to have been exposed, as long as of course they continue to comply. With the inclusion of major US corporations as contractor and such espionage partners, how much leverage will they be able to gain in many countries.

Advanced malware controlling industrial systems

[Kevin Fishburne]

This thought began as a joke, but this actually does sound how something like Skynet could be born. Malware is infamous for aggressively trying to preserve itself. We all joke about how stupid the idea of programming an AI with a strong sense of self-preservation is because of the obvious dangers, but that is exactly how malware is programmed. Programming it to control industrial systems as well (giving it a "body") seems like a really bad idea, particularly if the aim is not to sabotage the infected industrial system, but to cause as much damage to the target nation as possible (a reasonable wartime goal).

Re:Most sophisticated malware?

[daniel23]

Will this sophisticated malware work on anything other than Microsoft Windows

While I do not think you expected sincere answers to this question there is a reason to support the obligatory "of course not" answer. From the Kaspersky analysis ( https://securelist.com/blog/re... )

"The name Regin is apparently a reversed "In Reg", short for "In Registry", as the malware can store its modules in the registry. "

And since Linux has no registry...

- then again I would not ne surprised to learn that there is a variant of this tool runing on linux which just swaps in a different module to store its VFS at a place hard to detect on linux. Unused space behind the partitions or something...

So, no - no reason to feel safe. Your choice of OS may only protect you until they decide to actually aim at you.