House Rep Questions McAfee over Shady RAT Implications

US Representative Mary Bono Mack has sent a letter to Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee's vice president of threat research, asking him about the implications of the major cyber espionage operation recently exposed by the company.

According to Reuters, Bono Mack, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Commerce, wanted to learn what was McAfee's opinion regarding the public disclosure of sensitive breaches; whether they would help the fight against cyber crime or impact it in a negative manner.

The congresswoman is the driving force behind new legislation that would require companies handling consumer personal information to disclose data breaches in a timely manner and implement minimum data security measures.

Alperovitch's recent report about Operation Shady RAT which affected over 70 large companies, organizations and government institutions from all over the world, got a lot of coverage in the media.

McAfee's research team believes that most companies were compromised through spear phishing attacks targeting their employees and that the primary motive behind this five-year-long operation was the theft of intellectual property.

Bono Mack asked Alperovitch if the cyber espionage operation also exposed any sensitive consumer information the affected organizations had stored.

The congresswoman is ultimately interested in learning what represents a greater target for hackers, intellectual property and national secrets or consumer information that can facilitate identity theft.

The House subcommittee on commerce has jurisdiction over cybersecurity issues and launched probes into high-profile cyber attacks and data breaches that compromised sensitive consumer information.

There is strong criticism in the US that companies take a long time until they disclose data breaches. Until now local governments were free to enact and enforce their own laws in this matter, but the need for uniformity is driving federal legislation forward.