According to the US Department of Justice, it has switched off “sophisticated” spy software that the Russian secret service FSB is said to have used to attack computer systems in at least 50 countries. With the help of the malware called “Snake”, the FSB has penetrated networks of government agencies, research institutions and the media over the past 20 years and stole “hundreds of secret documents”, as the ministry announced on Tuesday yesterday. The target of the attacks was also a NATO member state.
After years of investigation, employees of the Federal Police FBI managed to defeat the spy software, the Justice Department said. The agents managed to do this by injecting their own code, which instructed “Snake” to overwrite itself.
According to the US Cyber Security Agency (CISA), a unit of the Russian FSB secret service called Turla started developing the “Snake” malware in 2003. According to experts, it is particularly difficult to detect in computer systems and networks.
In addition, the program was easily updated and modified and, according to CISA, “few errors despite its complexity”. This enabled the FSB to infiltrate networks undetected for years and access computers with secret documents.
