Malware & other nasty IT / cyber things

[AdamG]

Sounds ominous. Anyone know anything more that they can share?

Punta Cana, Dominican Republic – February 10, 2014 - Kaspersky Lab’s security research team today announced the discovery of “The Mask” (aka Careto), an advanced Spanish-language speaking threat actor that has been involved in global cyber-espionage operations since at least 2007. What makes The Mask special is the complexity of the toolset used by the attackers, including an extremely sophisticated malware, a rootkit, a bootkit, Mac OS X and Linux versions and possibly versions for Android and iOS (iPad/iPhone).

The primary targets are government institutions, diplomatic offices and embassies, energy, oil and gas companies, research organizations and activists. Victims of this targeted attack have been found in 31 countries around the world – from the Middle East and Europe to Africa and the Americas.

http://usa.kaspersky.com/about-us/pr...global-cyber-e

[AdamG]

Based on the prevalence of Spanish-speaking victims, the number of infected victims in Morocco, and the fact that Gibraltar is on the list, that implies Spain is behind this one. My guess is that soon countries will start infecting uninteresting targets in order to deflect blame, but that they still think they’re immune from discovery. So Spain, if it is you, attack a few sites in the Falklands next time -- and use a separate tool for Morocco.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archiv...sk_espion.html