Russian State Agencies Infected With Spyware

Thoughtful: Vladimir Putin

While security experts and the US law enforcement speculate the involvement of Russian state-sponsored hackers behind the DNC hack, the Federal Security Service, the FSB, announced the discovery of a spyware in state computer networks.

The news was first reported the Reuters agency on June 30, networks belonging to at least 20 organizations were infected by a malware as part of a coordinated attack.

“Russia’s intelligence service said that the computer networks of 20 organizations, including state agencies and defense companies, have been infected with spyware in what it described as a targeted and coordinated attack.” reported the blog post published by the Reuters.

The FSB hasn’t provided further details about the attack, its experts found many similarities to other attacks that hit Russian entities and other targets worldwide. The Russian authorities haven’t provided information about who is behind the attacks.

“Information technology resources of government agencies, scientific and military institutions, defense industry companies and other entities involved in crucial infrastructure have been infected,” reads the announcement published by the FSB on its website.

As always happens in these cases, the nature of the attack and of the chosen targets lead the experts into believing that the attack was launched by a nation-state actor.

According to the FSB, the virus was sent as an attachment in an email, allowing the sender to intercept data traffic, listen in on phone calls, take screenshots, switch on microphones and cameras and log keystrokes.

US government hackers at the National Security Agency are likely targeting Russian government-linked hacking teams to see once and for all if they're responsible for the massive breach at the Democratic National Committee, according to three former senior intelligence officials. It's a job that the current head of the NSA's elite hacking unit said they've been called on to do many times before.

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