Support The Moscow Times!

Russian Cyber Attackers Used 2 Unknown Flaws — U.S. Security Firm

The same hackers are also believed to have broken into White House machines containing unclassified but sensitive information such as the president's travel schedule.

SAN FRANCISCO — A widely reported Russian cyber-spying campaign against diplomatic targets in the United States and elsewhere has been using two previously unknown flaws in software to penetrate target machines, a security company investigating the matter said on Saturday.

FireEye Inc, a prominent U.S. security company, said the espionage effort took advantage of holes in Adobe Systems Inc's Flash software for viewing active content and Microsoft Corp's ubiquitous Windows operating system.

The campaign has been tied by other firms to a serious breach at U.S. State Department computers. The same hackers are also believed to have broken into White House machines containing unclassified but sensitive information such as the president's travel schedule.

FireEye has been assisting the agencies probing those attacks, but it said it could not comment on whether the spies are the same ones who penetrated the White House because that would be classified as secret.

FireEye said that Adobe had issued a fix for the security weakness on Tuesday, so that users with the most current versions should be protected. The Microsoft problem by itself is less dangerous, since it involves enhanced powers on a computer from those of an ordinary user.

A Microsoft spokesman said the company was working on a patch.

In October, FireEye said the group it calls APT28 had been at work since 2007 and had targeted U.S. defense attaches and military contractors, NATO alliance offices and government officials in Georgia and other countries of special interest to the Kremlin.

Days before that report, security firm Trend Micro Inc described a campaign it called "Pawn Storm" against computers in the State Department, Russian dissidents, NATO and other Eastern European nations. Because Pawn Storm and APT28 used some of the same tools and hit the same targets, other information security professionals concluded they were the same hackers.

On Thursday, Trend Micro said that the Pawn Storm hackers had increased their activity recently and had targeted bloggers who had interviewed President Barack Obama. It also said the group had "probably" stolen online credentials of a military correspondent at an unnamed major U.S. newspaper.

Though the security flaws APT28 used are new, it had been well established that the group was highly skilled. Saturday's report is one in a flurry generated by rival firms ahead of the RSA Conference this week in San Francisco, the largest annual technology security gathering in the country.

Sign up for our free weekly newsletter

Our weekly newsletter contains a hand-picked selection of news, features, analysiss and more from The Moscow Times. You will receive it in your mailbox every Friday. Never miss the latest news from Russia. Preview
Subscribers agree to the Privacy Policy

A Message from The Moscow Times:

Dear readers,

We are facing unprecedented challenges. Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization, criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution. This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent."

These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia. The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate, unbiased reporting on Russia.

We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help.

Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and every contribution makes a significant impact.

By supporting The Moscow Times, you're defending open, independent journalism in the face of repression. Thank you for standing with us.

Once
Monthly
Annual
Continue
paiment methods
Not ready to support today?
Remind me later.

Read more