14 DAY TRIAL // A senior staffer in the office of German chancellor Angela Merkel has been targeted by a cyber-espionage campaign carried out through Regin advanced persistent threat.
The head of the Department for European Policy discovered the malicious software on a USB storage device she had used on the home computer; she is known to work in close contact with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
According to German newspaper Bild, Merkel’s senior staff member took home a draft of a speech she was working on at the office. The next time she connected the USB to the office computer the antivirus software scanned the device and issued an infection alert for Regin cyber-espionage tool.
According to the newspaper, a check of the machines at the Federal Chancellery showed that no other machine had been infected with the malware piece.
An analysis of the malware from Kaspersky shows that Regin has been used in targeted attacks on officials in Germany as well as other countries, such as Belgium, Brazil, Russia, Iran, Algeria and Afghanistan.
Among the special features of the malware, there is the ability to penetrate and monitor GSM networks. It also relies on a sophisticated infrastructure for communication between infected networks and command and control servers, facilitating stealthy data transmission.
Regin was discovered by Kaspersky in early 2012, although its activity has been determined to have started at least in 2004, and it is believed that the espionage campaign behind it is still active.