Irish government attacked using ‘MiniDuke’ PDF malware
although I haven’t seen a word of it in the Irish media yet — wonder if the government have noticed?
Cyber criminals have targeted government officials in more than 20 countries, including Ireland and Romania, in a complex online assault seen rarely since the turn of the millennium. The attack, dubbed “MiniDuke” by researchers, has infected government computers as recently as this week in an attempt to steal geopolitical intelligence, according to security experts.
(tags: ireland malware attacks pdf security espionage romania miniduke)
The MiniDuke Mystery: PDF 0-day Government Spy Assembler 0x29A Micro Backdoor – Securelist
By analysing the logs from the command servers, we have observed 59 unique victims in 23 countries: Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States.
Romania believes rival nation behind MiniDuke cyber attack | Reuters
“It is a cyber attack … pursued by an entity that has the characteristics of a state actor,” [Romanian secret service] SRI spokesman Sorin Sava told Reuters […]. “Our estimations show the attack is certainly relevant to Romania’s national security taking into account the profile of the compromised entities.” […] In this case, computer experts say an attacker from the former Soviet Union could be more likely. “MiniDuke” in some ways resembles a banking fraud Trojan dubbed “TinBa” believed to have been created by Russian criminal hackers.
(tags: ireland malware attacks pdf security espionage romania miniduke)