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Probably only a small part of a large, private espionage ring.
In March it was announced that Telenor had been exposed to a significant hacker attacks that may have drained huge amounts of information from sources such as the company’s senior executives.
extent of the leak is not publicly known.
Read also: – If they have no control, no control
Norwegian security company Norman in the wake of this incident the resources to find out what was behind, and now they have created a report named “The Hangover Report”.
Operation Hangover
In the report, the attack against Telenor in all probability is part of a larger espionage system originating from India.
key word “hangover” is something that goes back to the source code of large parts of the software.
According to Norman are talking about a centralized and professional networks that will be held in about three years that has spread its efforts over a number of countries and companies. It all seems to have started with espionage against Pakistan, where among other government officials allegedly hit – but that has gradually started to walk over to industrial espionage worldwide.
It must have been talking about telecommunications, mining, automotive, courts, research, food industry, financial industry and military institutions. Telenor seems to be just a cog in this system. Porsche is another company that is mentioned by name.
According to Norman, we find links to Norway, Pakistan, USA, Iran, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Jordan, Indonesia, Britain, Germany, Austria, Poland and Romania.
– What surprises us is the extreme diversity of sectors that are attacked, including natural resources, telecommunications, justice, restaurants and factories. It is unlikely that this organization carries out industrial espionage only by self-interest – making this a significant concern, says security expert Norman Trygve Aasland to IDG.
Went also to peace activists
security company F-Secure has also revealed that a Mac accompanying an activist from Angola who attended the Oslo Freedom Forum was infected with spyware.
software was used, according to security experts not be particularly sophisticated, but quite typical bespoke software based on among other known vulnerabilities in Windows, as well as typical phishing techniques where users are tricked into clicking on links that lead to malicious content.
did not identify the use of so-called unknown vulnerabilities, or “Zero-Day Attack”, which among other things was massively used in the famous Stuxnet / Flame attack against Iranian nuclear industry. Norman believes there are no indications that this is state-sponsored espionage.
attacks used to mainly be aimed at Windows, but it also revealed the use of bespoke software to the Mac. There will also be indications of attacks against mobile phones, but this is not documented.
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