Industry News

Since 2006, persistent malware attacks have affected six dozen organizations, including government agencies, military contractors, major news outlets, international sports organizations and technology firms, according to prominent computer security researcher Dmitri Alperovitch's recent report.

The report describes how a leading technology company gained access to command and control server logs used by sophisticated hackers. These logs identified a roster of diverse victims that have been targeted since the server began generating records five years ago. In 2006, the victim population was limited mainly to South Korean and U.S. government and industry sites. The following year, activity spiked 260 percent, with two nations' Olympic committees among the new targets.

To protect their business interests, Alperovitch's report does not name many victims explicitly, nor does the report name a suspected perpetrator, though it says the scope and duration of the attacks suggest a nation state is the most likely culprit. Based on the target group, internet security experts have postulated China masterminded the intrusions, which typically sent a malicious email to an employee at the target organization. Once the email was opened, malware infected the victim's computer and spread to other machines on the network.

Last spring, the U.S. Department of Defense announced it would consider military retaliation in response to major cyber attacks.