A cyber attacker group equipped with a toolset similar to ones used by U.S. intelligence agencies has infiltrated key institutions in countries including Iran and Russia.
Kaspersky Lab released a report (find the attachment) on 16 February, 2015 that said the tools were created by the "Equation" group, which it stopped short of linking to the U.S. National Security Agency.
The tools, exploits and malware used by the group -- named after its penchant for encryption -- have strong similarities with NSA techniques described in top-secret documents leaked in 2013.
Countries hit the most by Equation include Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and China. Targets in those countries included the military, telecommunications, embassies, government, research institutions and Islamic scholars, Kaspersky said.
Kaspersky's most striking finding is Equation's ability to infect the firmware of a hard drive, or the low-level code that acts as an interface between hardware and software.
The malware reprograms the hard drive's firmware, creating hidden sectors on the drive that can only be accessed through a secret API (application programming interface). Once installed, the malware is impossible to remove: disk formatting and reinstalling the OS doesn't affect it, and the hidden storage sector remains.
The malware reprograms the hard drive’s firmware, creating hidden sectors on the drive that can only be accessed through a secret API (application programming interface). Once installed, the malware is impossible to remove: disk formatting and reinstalling the OS doesn’t affect it, and the hidden storage sector remains.
Theoretically, the world is aware of this possibility, but as far as I know, this is the first time an attacker having such an incredibly advanced capability.
Equation knows sets of unique ATA commands used by hard drive vendors to format their products. Most ATA commands are public, as they comprise a standard that ensures a hard drive is compatible with just about any kind of computer. It appears Equation has been far, far ahead of the security industry. It’s almost impossible to detect this kind of tampering. Reflashing the drive, or replacing its firmware, is also not foolproof, since some types of modules in some types of firmware are persistent and can’t be reformatted.
Courtesy: jeremy_kirk@idg.com