Operation “Red October,” an Advanced Cyber-Espionage Campaign

Today Kaspersky Lab published a new research report which identified an elusive cyber-espionage campaign targeting diplomatic, governmental and scientific research organizations in several countries for at least five years. The primary focus of this campaign targets countries in Eastern Europe, former USSR Republics, and countries in Central Asia, although victims can be found everywhere, including Western Europe and North America.

The main objective of the attackers was to gather sensitive documents from the compromised organizations, which included geopolitical intelligence, credentials to access classified computer systems, and data from personal mobile devices and network equipment.

Kaspersky Lab

US, Israel behind Flame virus

The United States and Israel jointly developed the Flame virus, which collected intelligence for a cyber-attack on Iran’s nuclear program. This has been confirmed by a number of Western officials familiar with classified data on the effort.

­The CIA, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Israeli military were all involved in developing malware to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, the officials confirmed. “This is about preparing the battlefield for another type of covert action,” noted one official, as quoted by The Washington Post. “Cyber-collection against the Iranian program is way further down the road than this.”

Experts say Flame was designed to replicate even on highly secure networks. It allowed its creators to monitor the infected computer, activate microphones and cameras, take screenshots, log keyboard strokes, extract geolocational data from images and send and receive commands via Bluetooth wireless technology.

The virus came to light last month, when Iran detected cyber-attacks on its Oil Ministry and oil export facilities. “The virus penetrated some fields — one of them was the oil sector,” Gholam Reza Jalali, an Iranian military official told the country’s state radio at that time. “Fortunately, we detected and controlled this single incident.”

Some US officials were unsatisfied with the attack. They say it was the result of a unilateral decision by Israel, which failed to consult its American partners on the move.

More on RT - Also see Stuxnet

Obama Ordered Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran

From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.

Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet.

At a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room within days of the worm’s “escape,” Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, Leon E. Panetta, considered whether America’s most ambitious attempt to slow the progress of Iran’s nuclear efforts had been fatally compromised.

NYTimes.com

Computer virus infects drone plane command centre in US

A computer virus that captures the strokes on a keyboard has infected networks used by pilots who control US air force drones flown on the warfront, according to a published report.

Wired magazine reported that the spyware has resisted efforts to remove it from computers in the cockpits at Creech air force base in Nevada, where pilots remotely fly Predator and Reaper drones in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

The story said there were no confirmed reports that classified data had been stolen and that the virus did not stop pilots from flying any of their missions. Network security specialists were uncertain whether the virus was part of a directed attack or accidentally infected the networks, the story said.

The air force said in a statement that it did not discuss threats to its computer networks because it could help hackers refine their tactics. "We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back," Wired quoted a source as saying. "We think it's benign. But we just don't know."

The Guardian

Israel video shows Stuxnet Virus as one of its successes

A showreel played at a retirement party for the head of the Israel Defence Forces appears to back claims that the country's security forces were responsible for the Stuxnet cyber attack on the Iranian nuclear programme.

The video of Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi's operational successes included references to Stuxnet, a computer virus that disrupted the Natanz nuclear enrichment site last year, it was reported.

Although Israel has not officially accepted responsibility for the Stuxnet attack, evidence of its role has been mounting since the virus was first revealed in July. The virus, unprecedented in its sophistication, was designed to infiltrate the control systems at Natanz and make hidden, damaging adjustments to centrifuges.

Security researchers say factors including complexity of the operation point strongly to Israel as the source. It has also been reported that a special facility was set up with American co-operation in the Israeli desert to test the weapon.

More on Telegraph