The United States has neutralized “Snake”, the malware that Russian spies have been using for twenty years – Corriere.it

The United States has Neutralizes “Snake”, a malware that Russian spies have been using for almost twenty years To steal sensitive documents in about fifty countries, especially those of NATO. This was revealed by the US Department of Justice, on Tuesday, specifying that The “snake” will be fed from the FSB unit to hundreds of computers To supervise among members of government, think tanks and other journalists. Russia has used highly sophisticated malware to steal sensitive information from our allies. Then cleaned through a network of infected computers in the United States In a cynical attempt to cover up their crimes,” said U.S. District Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Brion Pace in a statement. “This is the most sophisticated long-term operation of malicious cyber-espionage.”

The Russian intelligence unit responsible for “Snake” is called Turlaoperating within the FSB’s 16th Directorate, the dedicated Department of Digital Intelligence also known as Unit 71330, is among the world’s longest-running – and innovative – espionage: Traces of its pirates date back to the 90’s. Very dangerous, Turla has operational bases all over Russia and targets classic targets such as governments, the military and defense sector. It has been held responsible for several accidents in the past, but according to experts Most of its activities have not been discovered.

As has happened, at least so far, with Snake, who was identified by the Internet and Infrastructure Security Agency “The most advanced cyberespionage tool in the FSB’s arsenal”. The malware infiltrated computers, creating infected terminals – able to communicate with each other – A kind of “secret” peer-to-peer network This made it possible to avoid counterintelligence and the surreptitious transmission of huge amounts of data. The snake has been updated continuouslymaking it very difficult to locate and neutralize.

During the decade-long investigation, agents discovered that the Turla unit used malware — controlled from Ryazan, Russia — to Hacking, among other things, into the computer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of a NATO countryand the theft of internal documents of the Alliance and the United Nations, but also for Crawl Inside Reporter Dealing with the Russian government of unidentified US media.

The FBI – the same agency explained – has done this before Try to loosen python’s grip on US computersthen expanded Operation Medusa to infected machines in the rest of the world: The agency’s programmers infiltrated the malwareand sending information conflicting with that from its operators, causing it to self-destruct.