But based on the technical details contained in the notice, the hackers are upping their game and employing even more advanced methods to trick users into downloading viruses onto their computers that can then siphon off files, messages, and other sensitive information.
“The sophistication of this attack far surpasses anything we have seen to date from any state actors,” said Michael Adams, a computer security expert who served more than two decades in the U.S. Special Operations Command. The Daily Beast shared the technical details of the malware with Adams, who said it employed tools that make the intruder extraordinarily difficult to detect.
“To use a military analogy, the level of sophistication of this attack is like comparing a World War I propeller-driven fighter plane to a stealth bomber coming in under the radar, completely destroying its target, and leaving before the enemy even realizes they have been attacked,” Adams said.
In the new campaign, which the notice says was detected on July 8, the victims received emails that purported to come from the National Endowment for Democracy, a prominent non-profit organization in Washington that receives congressional funding. The group supports pro-democracy efforts around the world, including in Russia and China, where hackers who recently stole personal records from more than 22 million current and former U.S. government employees are believed to be based.
The emails contained a link that, when clicked, takes recipients to an infected server on the organization’s network. It then downloads malicious software on to the victim’s computer.
Pentagon hacked
