United States & European Governments Targets Of Suspected Russian Spyware

An intricate version of spyware has been discreetly infecting many government computers both in the United States and in Europe in what is possibly the most elaborate cyber espionage schemes to date.

Experts and researchers believe that the spyware, universally known as Turla, is the work of the Russian government and is linked to the same software used to cause a massive breach in the US military in 2008 as well as a massive global cyber spying organization, Red October, which targets military nuclear, and diplomatic networks.

However, security experts expressed caution by indicating that Turla may look like Russian government work, it is impossible to confirm that unless Moscow claims responsibility. Malware developers often use the monikers of others to disguise their work.

According to Symantec, Turla is a classic spyware program. The program opens a back door and steals information from the computer it infects. The spyware affects all versions of Windows from Windows 98 to Windows 7.

The US has become experts in defending itself against the ever-changing cyber attack. The first attack on record came in 1988 when the Morris Worm attacked United States computers on the UNIX system Noun 1 and regenerated to spread which slowed computers to a snail’s pace and eventually rendered them useless. The worm was created by Robert Tappan Morris, who claimed he did not intend to infect government computers. His intention was to gauge how big the internet was.

Flash forward to the present day, many countries utilize cyber attacks as a part of information gathering and defense. In 2012 the United States accused China of widespread government sanctioned cyber attacks. China denied those accusations, turning the spotlight of blame on the US and their attacks on China. In the short time since, the blame game has been quieted as it is believed that most participate in the dubious activity.

With tensions between the United States and Russia at a near all time high, with the developments in Ukraine becoming more and more dire, the finger pointing in this cyber attack has been nil.

European, Russian and United States officials have all declined comment at this time.

This revelation comes at a time when cyber attacks are growing more violent, bigger and more frequent causing millions of dollars and puts a strain the internet. One such cyber attack hit Bitcoin, a virtual currency, and forced the company to shut down its site and stop processing payments briefly. Even still, most of the attacks appear to originate within the United States.