Cyber Alert – Operation Shady RAT
Cyber Police have been caught off guard by a massive cyber-espionage attack.
Dubbed "Operation Shady RAT (Remote Access Trojan)" by the security firm McAfee, which recently disclosed the hacking project, indicated that it involved at least 72 victims world-wide. The yet to be identified victims are primarily US Government Computers, UN Computers, defense firms, and private industries. It was also disclosed that at least 49 of the victims affected were American.
The hacking attempt appears to have used special crafted (and targeted) files, possibly advertisements, and specially crafted web pages to insert specially designed Trojans onto unpatched systems. Once inside a network, these Trojans opened up a backdoor to the infected systems and systematically searched for targeted technology data while looking for other computers and systems to infect. Because of the type and limited nature of these infections, they went on largely undetected. The backdoor, gave remote users unrestricted access.
China is currently suspected as being the originator of this hacking project, which apparently has been going on for at least the last (5) five years.
The latest news indicates that the Pentagon was unaware of the security breaches until they were informed by McAfee about two weeks ago.
If you are concerned about your system security, CCS Retail Systems has the necessary tools, knowledge and staff to help you secure your systems. So please contact us to schedule your security review.
CCS also has a Formal Risk Assessment Program that covers software and hardware security as well as PCI-DSS transaction compliance.