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McAfee uncovers massive global cyber snoop

Computer security company McAfee has said that it has discovered a massive global cyber spying operation targeting several US government departments, the UN and other governments across the world for five years or more.

Analysts say it is likely that China is behind the cyber espionage dubbed 'Operation Shady RAT' by McAfee. Vanity Fair, who originally broke the story, quotes James A. Lewis, director and senior fellow of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as saying: "All the signs point to China. Who else spies on Taiwan?"

RAT stands for "remote access tool".

The Guardian reported that security experts at McAfee had discovered a "command and control" server in 2009 that was used to control the operation. On revisiting the server this March, experts found logs which revealed all of the attacks.

Victims of the snooping campaign include: governments of Canada, India, South Korea, Taiwan, the US and Vietnam; international bodies such as the UN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the International Olympic Committee, the World Anti-Doping Agency; 12 US defense contractors, one UK defense contractor; and companies in construction, energy, steel, solar power, technology, satellite communications, accounting and media, said an AFP report.

McAfee said there is evidence that security breaches date back to mid-2006.

McAfee vice-president of Threat Research Dmitri Alperovitch said the attacker was looking for information in military, diplomatic and economic domains.

"If you look at an industry and think about what is most valuable in terms of intellectual property, that is what they were going after," Alperovitch said.

He said that the loss represents a massive economic threat. "This is the biggest transfer of wealth in terms of intellectual property in history," Alperovitch said. "The scale at which this is occurring is really, really frightening.

McAfee: MS Failing to Provide Code

McAfee said Wednesday that Microsoft has failed to keep its promises, and has not delivered the necessary code and instructions to access the core of the Windows Vista operating system. Microsoft promised the European Commission it would do so last week.

The company is the second in as many days to claim Microsoft is not providing the APIs needed by its security partners. On Tuesday, Sunbelt Software called the company's announcement about sharing APIs was a "red herring" to fool the press.

After taking a very hands-on approach in enforcement, the EU Commission has now stepped back, saying it is now the responsibility of the companies to decide whether Microsoft is in compliance. From their public statements, it would seem many believe the Redmond company is not.

The issue surrounds what APIs are actually being provided. Microsoft said Monday it would allow for third party security companies to stop Microsoft's own security alerts in favor of their own. However, McAfee and others want access to the kernel in the 64-bit version of Vista.

A new feature called PatchGuard prevents code being added into the Windows kernel, which affects the way some security companies protect the operating system. Microsoft says the feature was designed to ensure customer security, and developers don't need the ability to patch the kernel.

But Symantec and Sunbelt say hackers will break PatchGuard, leaving customers exposed because security vendors can't properly protect them. McAfee claims Microsoft has not cooperated with security provides on the changes in Vista.

While some type of code was made available on Monday, it was in the form of a document on Windows Security Center. McAfee scientists didn't fully understand it, and placed calls to Microsoft to ask questions. To date, those calls have not been returned.

"In accordance with the commitments made last week, on Monday October 16th, at 6 a.m. Microsoft supplied the Windows Security Centre APIs for alerts to all our security partners," Stephen Toulouse, senior product manager for Microsoft's Security Technology Unit told BetaNews.

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