SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. National Security
Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard
drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top
manufacturers, giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on the majority
of the world's computers, according to cyber researchers and former
operatives.
That long-sought and closely guarded ability was part of a
cluster of spying programs discovered by Kaspersky Lab, the
Moscow-based security software maker that has exposed a series of
Western cyberespionage operations.
Kaspersky said it found personal computers in 30 countries
infected with one or more of the spying programs, with the most
infections seen in Iran, followed by Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan,
China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria. The targets included government
and military institutions, telecommunication companies, banks, energy
companies, nuclear researchers, media, and Islamic activists, Kaspersky
said. (http://reut.rs/1L5knm0)
The firm declined to publicly name the country behind the
spying campaign, but said it was closely linked to Stuxnet, the NSA-led
cyberweapon that was used to attack Iran's uranium enrichment facility.
The NSA is the agency responsible for gathering electronic intelligence
on behalf of the United States.
A former NSA employee told Reuters that Kaspersky's
analysis was correct, and that people still in the intelligence agency
valued these spying programs as highly as Stuxnet. Another former
intelligence operative confirmed that the NSA had developed the prized
technique of concealing spyware in hard drives, but said he did not know
which spy efforts relied on it.
NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines declined to comment.
Kaspersky published the technical details of its research
on Monday, which should help infected institutions detect the spying
programs, some of which trace back as far as 2001.
(http://bit.ly/17bPUUe)
No comments:
Post a Comment