US Authorities Dismantle Russian Cyberespionage Program Targeting Government Systems

The Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that the United States, along with its allies, has disrupted a wide-ranging cyberespionage campaign conducted by Russia's federal intelligence service (FSB) for nearly two decades.

The operation targeted at least 50 countries, including NATO allies, through a global network of malware-infected computers, Bloomberg reported. The operation involved disabling the malicious software, known as Snake, on compromised computers using an FBI-developed tool called PERSEUS.

In response, intelligence and cybersecurity agencies from allied governments have issued a joint advisory with technical information to help cybersecurity professionals detect and remediate the malware on their networks.

The cyberespionage program's key targets were government systems and journalists, as well as "other targets of interest to the Russian Federation," according to the DOJ.

Despite victims' efforts to remediate the compromise, the malware program typically goes undetected by the user and remains on the device, per Fox News.

Elite Russian Hackers

According to cybersecurity company Mandiant, which is a unit of Google Cloud, the FBI has attributed the implant of the Snake espionage malware to Turla, an elite Russian hacking unit.

Turla had also capitalized on the efforts of other intelligence services, as shown in 2018 when it hacked into the network of an undisclosed Middle Eastern nation using a program developed in Iran, per CNN.

The elite hacker group's reputation as one of the Kremlin's top hacking teams has motivated private researchers and journalists to hunt down its members.

A 2022 investigation by German public broadcaster Bayerische Rundfunk traced some Turla operations to a company in Ryazan, Russia, which is connected to the FSB, about 120 miles southeast of Moscow. The US and its allies' advisory confirmed that Turla conducts its daily hacking operations at an FSB facility in Ryazan.