German Parliament May Need To Replace All Hardware and Software To Stop Malware

jfruh writes: Trojan spyware has been running on computers in the German parliament for over four weeks, sending data to an unknown destination; and despite best efforts, nobody's been able to remove it. The German government is seriously considering replacing all hardware and software to get rid of it. From the ITWorld article: "After the attack, part of the parliament’s traffic was routed over the federal government’s more secure data network by the Federal Office For Information Security, Der Spiegel reported. Some Germans suspect that the Russian foreign intelligence service SVR is behind the attack. On Thursday, the parliament will discuss how to address the situation."

Comments

Re:This would never have happened under Hitler!

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> No computers in 1945...

Turn in your geek card.
(http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=cmptr - see the entry about the Z3 in 1941)

Re: This would never have happened under Hitler!

[kenh]

Uh, check your history - the German government used many of what were called at the time computers to keep track of their progress on certain 'projects'. IBM supplied the machinery...

It was punched card tabulators, sorters, and printers, but they were programmed (arranged/wired) to perform calculations.

Re: Are these the Germans...

[kenh]

Oh, they are switching back to Windows...

http://microsoft-news.com/germ...

This is the modern reality.

[WSOGMM]

The reality of today is that, if you communicate any secrets, you must consider the possibility of your communications being tapped/intercepted. It is even possible that hardware is compromised before you even buy it.

With backdoors, BIOS hacking and packet sniffing being part of the daily talk on slashdot, you have to be prepared to communicate end-to-end with multiple levels of pre-planned encryption. That said, I don't think I've ever said anything that needs that much security, but a nation-state might have.