Source Code Similarities: Experts Unmask 'Regin' Trojan as NSA Tool

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/regin-malware-unmasked-as-nsa-tool-after-spiegel-publishes-source-code-a-1015255.html



A comparison of malware codes: Regin is on the left; QWERTY, published by SPIEGEL, is on the right.

Source Code Similarities: Experts Unmask 'Regin' Trojan as NSA Tool
By Marcel Rosenbach, Hilmar Schmundt and Christian Stöcker
January 27, 2015 – 01:21 PM

Earlier this month, SPIEGEL International published an article based on the trove of documents made available by whistleblower Edward Snowden describing the increasingly complex digital weapons being developed by intelligence services in the US and elsewhere. Concurrently, several documents were published as well as the source code of a sample malware program called QWERTY found in the Snowden archive.

For most readers, that source code was little more than 11 pages of impenetrable columns of seemingly random characters. But experts with the Russian IT security company Kaspersky compared the code with malware programs they have on file. What they found were clear similarities with an elaborate cyber-weapon that has been making international headlines since November of last year.

Last fall, Kaspersky and the US security company Symantec both reported for the first time the discovery of a cyber-weapon system which they christened "Regin". According to Kaspersky, the malware had already been in circulation for 10 years and had been deployed against targets in at least 14 countries, including Germany, Belgium and Brazil but also India and Indonesia.

Symantec spoke of a "highly complex" threat. Many of the targets were in the telecommunications sector, but others included energy companies and airlines. Both Symantec and Kaspersky did not shy away from superlatives when describing the malware program, calling it a "top-tier espionage tool" and the most dangerous cyber-weapon since Stuxnet, the notorious malware program used to attack the Iranian nuclear program.



The Regin code on the Kaspersky website: Identical code.