FireEye: Russian hackers exploited Adobe Flash vulnerabilities
Reuters – Russian hackers who struck diplomatic targets in the United States and elsewhere allegedly used two unknown software vulnerabilities to breach their targets, according to the security firm investigating the matter.
FireEye, a prominent U.S. security firm, said the group exploited holes in Adobe Systems Inc's Flash software, as well as Microsoft Corp's widely used Windows operating system.
This group is reportedly behind the serious breach of State Department systems. The same hackers are also believed to have breached White House systems that contained unclassified but sensitive information such as the president's travel schedule.
FireEye is trying to help the government by thoroughly examining these attacks, but said it could not comment further on the matter, or whether it was the same Russian hackers who infiltrated the White House, because that information has been classified.
FireEye said Adobe had issued an update for the vulnerability exploited by hackers on Tuesday to protect those using its applications. Microsoft's problem itself is less serious, the security firm said. However, a Microsoft spokesperson said the company is working on a patch.
In October, FireEye said that the Russian group APT28, which has existed since 2007, has targeted US defense agencies, NATO alliance offices, as well as government officials in Georgia and other countries of particular interest to the Kremlin.
A few days before the report, security firm Trend Micro Inc. described an attack it dubbed “Pawn Storm” against computers at the State Department, Russian dissidents, NATO and other Eastern European countries. The Pawn Storm attack and the APT28 group used the same tools to hit their targets, leading information security researchers to conclude that they were the same hackers.
On Thursday, Trend Micro said Russian hackers behind the Pawn Storm had increased activity on bloggers who had interviewed President Barack Obama. Researchers also said the group had "likely" stolen credentials from a military correspondent at a major U.S. newspaper.
It should be mentioned that the security vulnerabilities used by the APT28 group were new, so these hackers are very highly skilled.
Source: secnews.gr
