TOP US CYBERSECURITY FIRM GOT HACKED
We often say that we’ve already written all the algorithms in the world and that we are stuck in an impasse where there’s a serious lack of ideas. So, is it true that we have discovered nearly everything and it’s quite impossible for us, Humans, to innovate and create new stuff concerning the technology field?
The answer is that recently FireEye which is a top Cybersecurity Firm claimed that it was hacked by a Nation-State using “novel techniques”.
It turned out that these hackers were after the most sophisticated hacking tools in the world: “Red team tools” which are used by the FireEye company only to look for vulnerabilities in the system of their client after getting his permission. Most of the tools are based in a digital vault that FireEye closely guards.
In fact, developing such “red team tools” which could be useful in mounting new attacks around the world, is frustrating. It’s not only about knowing that any firm either a start-up or a big famous company can be pierced, with all its secrets revealed at any time, yet it’s about knowing that every country’s confidentiality is in danger and that each state is competing towards breaking through other states’ secrecy.
Even the FBI itself failed to identify who the hacker was since he used different internet protocol addresses to avoid being caught.
As a matter of fact, many investigations took place in order to find out who was responsible for the attack. However, one of the things that made the FBI raise the possibilities of its being Russian agencies is a similar attack back in 2016 during elections.
The hack was the biggest known theft in cybersecurity tools since those of the National Security Agency were purloined in 2016 by a still-unidentified group called Shadow Brokers and which was a perfect gate for Russia and North Korea to exploit against government agencies, hospitals, and the world’s biggest conglomerates, resulting in more than 10$ billion.
Although NSA tools were more useful, FireEye’s red team tools are essentially built from malware that the company has seen used in a wide range of attacks.
Despite the massive lack of evidence, American investigators are still searching for clues. Among the procedures taken, FireEye published key elements of its “Red Team” tools so that others around the world would see attacks coming and they kept accusing Russian agencies. That’s when the Russian National Association took action and claimed that there was no evidence of its responsibility for the attack even though Russia was responsible for a similar attack held last year where the victims were McAfee, Trend Micro, and Symantec. To sum up, looking at the attack back in 2017 where Kaspersky, the Russian security firm was hacked by Israeli, Russia is clearly getting its revenge
