'Red October' cyber-attack found by Russian researchers | Hacker News Reader

'Red October' cyber-attack found by Russian researchers

bbc.co.uk

103 pointsderpenxyne16 comments

"Red October - which is named after a Russian submarine featured in the Tom Clancy novel The Hunt For Red October"

Is the BBC sure that the Russians named the attack after an American novel named after a very important month in Russian history, and not that the Russians didn't just name the attack after a very important month in Russian history?

I know a few Russians who have seen The Hunt for Red October, and they said they couldn't stop laughing at Sean Connery trying to speak in Russian. I don't think they take Tom Clancy as seriously as we do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_October

edit -- Appears I was totally wrong on my assumption. See varjag's comment below.

The report by Kaspersky labs (linked by jsaxton86 here) references that. Could be double entendre though.

I was under the impression that the analysts named it.

If it's Kaspersky, the analysts likely are Russian.

A more technical overview can be found here: http://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792262/Red_October_...

Why is it that every time Kaspersky does anything at all, the article says "Russian researchers", or "Russian security analysts"? When Twitter does something, the news article doesn't read: "California based social media experts released ..."

I think it's because Twitter is well known so they can reference the company by name and people will know what the story is about.

Kaspersky is not as well known by the general public so they use a descriptive name. When "Kaspersky" becomes synonymous with research and security by the general public, they'll start using Kaspersky in the title.

Ask twitter...

I couldn't help read this as "KGB uses mouthpiece organization to announce its own information warfare tools have been as advanced as Flame for years, have been targeting intelligence agencies (hello friends) and were not discovered by anyone until intentionally leaked".

I have no supporting evidence but it would make an excellent footnote in history of The Electronic War.

As a former conspiracy lover, I always find it interesting Kaspersky tends to find more state sponsored hacking than any other company.

Is this something they specialize in, or is it simply a coincidence?

Former? I think you need to revise that :-P

I'd take a guess that they have a certain client who doesn't mind them making a subset of information public.

Probably one who sees value in showing that they know: you know: they know. Because then you must ask yourself, how long did they know? Could they have been falsifying information?

Alternatively, they may be trying to get into a very lucrative sector ;-)

Compared with US intelligence, KGB was much larger and more involved in Soviet society, and its graduates make up a much larger proportion of Russian political elites. Its political influence could easily be underrated by someone from the US. And the Russian government is comparatively even more involved in the private sector.

So when you move from discussing West to discussing East, you may need to re-tune your feeling for when something is a paranoid conspiracy theory or not.

That is obvious that secret services would do that - it is a too good opportunity to let go. We'll see more and more of that, every country will launch its own - until we learn how to fight it.

Actually, when I read it the first thing I thought was hedge fund or oil traders.

You wouldn't believe the lengths I've seen people go to down here in Houston to get a leg up in the information war. Literally hundreds of millions daily could turn on something as seemingly innocuous as learning the amount of water being pumped into this well or the other. Freighters, fly by infra red photography (spy planes). Even satellite imagery. This hack seems pretty small potatoes, cost-wise, and would give you a big punch as far as trading edges go.

I have some qualms about attribution based on misspelling since those can be intentional. That said, I have not had a chance to do a second, deeper pass on the analysis, but I'd be careful about taking Kaspersky at face value given his ultimate sponsors.

[an error occurred while processing this directive] ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com