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Researchers Tie Regin Malware To NSA, Five Eyes Intel Agencies
Trailrunner7 writes Researchers at Kaspersky Lab have discovered shared code and functionality between the Regin malware platform and a similar platform described in a newly disclosed set of Edward Snowden documents 10 days ago by Germany's Der Spiegel. The link, found in a keylogger called QWERTY allegedly used by the so-called Five Eyes, leads them to conclude that the developers of each platform are either the same, or work closely together. "Considering the extreme complexity of the Regin platform and little chance that it can be duplicated by somebody without having access to its source codes, we conclude the QWERTY malware developers and the Regin developers are the same or working together," wrote Kaspersky Lab researchers Costin Raiu and Igor Soumenkov today in a published report. (Here is the Spiegel article.)
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https://threatpost.com/researchers-link-regin-to-malware-disclosed-in-recent-snowden-documents/110667
According to this article, Regin has been known for some time.
Fox IT, which was hired to remove Regin from the Belgian phone company Belgacom's website, didn't say anything about what it discovered because it "didn't want to interfere with NSA/GCHQ operations."
Now our Malware/Virus software engineers are practicing reuse. Excellent development practice out there folks! Keep Reusing that code!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
It would seem our governments are at minimum committing the crime of conspiracy to break into US (and UK, Aussie, etc) citizens computers, if they are helping out foreign governments. They may have made themeselves immune for their own actions, but I highly doubt that immunity extends to helping foreign governments break into your own citizens computers. I have not researched this though. Just thought some people with more knowledge might chime in. If it is not illegal, it really needs to be illegal.
Join the IParty!
And I thought it was IS/Russians/NKoreans/Aliens, because US and allies hold moral highground and would never initiate actions which they themselves consider to be acts of war, right?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB...
After all, it's ok if they do it. It's only bad if terrorists, communists and perverts do it.
Crying wolf and all that.
It's more likely they were spying on the Regin developers, stole their code, and modified it for their own purpose.
If we did it, it's cyberterrorism. If they do it, it's law enforcement.
Assholes.
These clowns are entirely willing to undermine the security of every computer on the planet to get their grubby fingers into everything.
We need products which keep these guys out, and these guys need a serious beat down in the courts to limit what they can do. A few of them probably should be hung for treason.
Morally, every black hat should be targeting these agencies to cause as much damage to them as possible -- because the damage they're doing to our freedoms is immeasurable.
Thanks, America, for leading the charge in fucking up the planet.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Out of points or I would do it myself.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
How long is it going to take before the American people get fed up with this. The NSA is obviously an out of control agency and has been for years. The people in charge need to start spending LONG prison sentences for their crimes against humanity. And before people start screaming "Think about the terrorists" remember that those in charge (both the NSA, FBI and others) have deliberately chosen to ignore gathered intell about actual terrorist threats (such as 911 and the Boston Marathon bombers). This should prove to everyone that the government considers their own citizens as more of a threat than foreign terrorists.
I am starting to smell bullshit here. When a reporter needs to make a scoop, all they seem to have to do is just say they pulled out a "Snowden document", and presto, a story. Especially if they feel they need to stir up some anti-American sentiment, which I'm sure some people or countries would love right about now.
When I took journalism classes in college, anyone writing something and ascribing it to a document that cannot be proven; merely alleged... that would ensure I got an "F" for the coursework. However, I took journalism when you couldn't pull "anonymous sources" out of your ass to "prove" your point either.
Never, if he's smart. ( And we know he's rather intelligent )
Were I in his shoes, the most damning evidence I had would be held back as leverage to ensure no one in the US Government did anything stupid. A digital dead mans switch if you will. Easy enough to bundle with the original encrypted files, just encrypt the crazy stuff with a secondary key. If you end up in an "accident" or going missing, the key gets distributed and the fun really starts.
Boils down to how badly the Government wants to get their hands on Snowden really. Is it really worth having your most intimate secrets dragged into the spotlight for the world to see ?
It is time ro return to the Write Protect Switch. Passwords are no longer effective in preventing firmware alterations by hostile organizations.
For those old enough to remember them, changing a BIOS required an EPROM burner and UV eraser. Changing CMOS settings required setting the write protect jumper.
Early infections were restricted to Write Enabled floppies, hard drives for machines with them, and everything else was write protected.
It is time to return to write protected firmware requiring physical access to alter.
Our complacency with remote management is showing the error of our ways as we are compromised.
The truth shall set you free!
...when Snowden is going to wake up with a bullet in his head...
Edward Snowden has released all of his information to news agencies. They are the ones now releasing this information. Snowden could die tomorrow and it wouldn't make a difference. The US government likely knows this, so there is no point in going after him. They may be lawless, but I don't think they would try to get him just for revenge.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
My friend, revenge ain't a big enough word. ;) If you don't imagine that there are people who would go after him, understand that you are mistaken.
People everywhere in the world are trying to avoid buying U.S. products because of many kinds of secret U.S. government actions, not just surveillance.
NSA = No Sales for Americans
Why would he tell the world? It's not the world he wants to keep in check.
Basically he would be trying to blackmail the government into inaction - and the whole point of blackmail is that you keep your mouth shut so long as the target does what you want. If he's employed such a strategy then I would expect that certain key individuals have received packets of especially damning information about themselves, along with a promise that should anything happen to him that information will become public.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Revenge wouldn't be the point - the point would be to send a clear message to future patriots that might try a similar stunt. Revenge would just make it more satisfying to do so.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I have to take with a grain of salt the claims made by a company headed by someone who studied at a school which was essentially a KGB recruitment camp, using documents leaked by a traitor who is being harbored by a hostile government and who is trotted out as a propaganda piece when it suits the aims of the de facto dictator of that adversary.
Edward Snowden should be given the US Presidential Medal of Freedom but that would require the US Government admitting its bad acts. Not going to happen even with a constitutional scholar lawyer in the Oval Office.
A traitor to a corrupt, immoral, self-serving government, and a hero to the people for whom the Constitution still has some meaning.
Your pal Hitler was big on medication. No wonder you recommend it.
The peasants need to standup and say enough is enough.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Revenge wouldn't be the point - the point would be to send a clear message to future patriots that might try a similar stunt. Revenge would just make it more satisfying to do so.
Yeah, maybe. I'd think that if they wanted to do that, they'd have done it already. But maybe they just haven't had the opportunity. Seems to me the horse is out of the barn.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Sure this horse is out of the barn, but there's lots of horses - that's why you want to make sure the others all hear the first one screaming as it's being eaten by cougars.
I can think of only a few reasons why it hasn't been done:
- To be truly effective it must be obvious that the US/NSA was behind it, and there may well be a fear that employing extra-legal methods to send that message would generate the public backlash that has thus far failed to manifest. A martyr can be far more powerful than a man.
- Given that he is under Russian protection, any such action could be taken as a direct assault on Russia, and in the current international political climate that might be regarded as too great a risk to take. They seem to be positioning themselves as the spokesman of a new global power structure - no sense in ceding them any more moral high ground than they've already got.
- The guilty parties still have some scruples (hey, nobody values their scruples like the man who doesn't have many)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Yeah, maybe. I'd think that if they wanted to do that, they'd have done it already. But maybe they just haven't had the opportunity. Seems to me the horse is out of the barn.
Seems to me that the CIA is not quite as omnipotent as their propaganda claims. Julian Assange has not had serious appendicitis, let alone a tragic heart attack nor freak accident, and we all know exactly where he is. How many years did it take to track down OBL, while he sat eating take-out in the suburbs?
No, I think it's pretty clear that the CIA have trouble finding their asses with both hands. Most of the time that doesn't matter too much, because the media is happy to believe without question that the identified bad guys were really bad, and the public would rather believe in James Bond than Maxwell Smart. I'm sure there are a few very clever and very capable people within CIA, NSA, etc, but I'm equally sure that they are, by and large, massive, hidebound bureaucracies employing legions of tenured civil servants whose sole goal is to get home in time to catch the evening weather report
What a relief! So if I use Dvorak I'm safe, right?
fuck you. Snowden was like jesus to the jews. He didn't betray any values, only the crooks
That's why I use AMD.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
You and your "hero" don't seem to either understand or support democratic governance.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You seem to be building the case that he was a traitor, and embracing it.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Lots of horses? I don't think so. Truly exceptional turncoats like that are once or twice in a generation.
Snowden is wanted as a fugitive from justice. He has refuge in Russia. That's about all there is to it, your theatre aside.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Possibly so - but if one man gets away with it relatively unscathed, that may embolden the next. Also you have to consider that thanks to exponential population growth modern generations involve a *hell* of a lot more individuals than anything even a few hundred years ago - what was once would have been "once every few generations" rarity can now be reasonably expected to occur many times per generation. Hell, we've already had both Snowden and Manning within a relatively brief window.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Lots of horses? I don't think so. Truly exceptional turncoats like that are once or twice in a generation.
Snowden is wanted as a fugitive from justice. He has refuge in Russia. That's about all there is to it, your theatre aside.
Yes, we call it political refugees. People who flee and are granted amnesty because they would be prosecuted if they returned to the totalitarian hellhole from where they fled.