(Moscow) The Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky has announced that it has discovered a hacking campaign that targeted it, with the FSB accusing the American NSA of being behind this cyberattack, amid extreme tensions between Moscow and Washington.
“Kaspersky Lab researchers have discovered previously unknown malware that attacks iOS devices” (of the American brand Apple), the company said in a statement Thursday, saying that “dozens of employees” were targeted.
In this campaign named “Operation Triangulation” by Kaspersky, one of the world’s leading antivirus companies, the main process was as follows: “Malware infiltrates victims’ devices […] via a hidden iMessage, then it triggers and takes full control of the device and user data”.
All this without the assistance of the device owner at any time, a method reminiscent of attacks called “zero clicks” by experts.
“After that, the (corrupted) iMessage was automatically deleted,” the statement said.
“The goal of the attackers is to spy,” Kaspersky said, saying “the installed software was stealthily transmitting information from the victim’s device to remote servers.”
The company claimed to have found traces of infection dating back to 2019 and that “the attack has continued” until today, without however saying who could be behind this hacking campaign.
The Russian security services (FSB) have, for their part, accused the US National Security Agency (NSA) of “close cooperation” with Apple, a clear allusion to who they believe is responsible.
According to the FSB, “several thousand” Apple devices have been “infected”, claiming that numbers of people working in Russian embassies abroad were “revealed” during this hacking campaign.
In a separate statement, the boss and founder of Kaspersky, Eugene Kaspersky, indicated to him that the group “is convinced that (he) was not the main target of this cyberattack” which targeted “middle and senior managers”. of his business.
Specializing in cybersecurity, Kaspersky, which publishes antivirus software of the same name, was added in March 2022, just after the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, to the blacklist of the American telecommunications policeman, Washington accusing it of represent a “threat to national security”.
Founded in 1997 and regularly accused in recent years of proximity to the Russian intelligence services – which it denies – the company claims 400 million user customers in more than 200 countries around the world.
