Hackers Installed Sophisticated Malware on U.S. Computers. Why Doesn’t Anyone Care?

The worm was designed to gather intelligence on the ongoing Iranian nuclear talks.

There's a powerful new computer worm infiltrating computers in America and around the world http://t.co/BiLKlu6pxS

— reason (@reason) July 4, 2015

For years, cybersecurity hawks have painted grim pictures of a "cyber Pearl Harbor," when sophisticated hackers will be able to infiltrate and commandeer critical U.S. networks to wreak whatever havoc they choose. Yet for some reason, when the most advanced cyber-espionage malware known was discovered on American systems, the usually indefatigable "tough on cyberterror" crowd was quiet.

The malware was made public in June, when Russian software security firm Kaspersky Lab rocked the information-security community by revealing that a powerful computer worm—similar to the 2010 Stuxnet virus—had been unleashed on computers in America and around the world roughly one year prior. The new malware, called "Duqu 2" for its apparent succession to 2011’s Duqu worm, alarmed info-security professionals with both its unprecedented strength and audacious targets. For months, attackers deployed frighteningly sophisticated espionage technology to secretly spy on all sorts of parties involved (however tenuously) in the ongoing Iranian nuclear negotiations, including government leaders, telecommunication and electrical-equipment companies, and impartial researchers....

The Duqu family of attacks, on the other hand, optimizes certain Stuxnet methods to focus on snooping instead of hijacking. The Duqu developers were also interested in Iran, but had no aspiration to sabotage physical factories from within their own networks. Rather, Duqu 2 was designed to gather intelligence on participants to the ongoing Iranian nuclear talks.

Duqu 2 is noteworthy for the unparalleled number of victims it intentionally infected, having compromised computer systems owned or used by Western heads of state, European telecommunications providers, American corporations, and Kaspersky Labs itself. During that time, hackers could freely explore comprised systems for a pervasive surveillance operation on the multilateral nuclear negotiations. Yet the scant and nonactionable details gleaned from this paranoid bugging scheme are surely not worth the tremendous geopolitical cost that comes with it. By targeting a trusted security research center and U.S. computer systems, the Duqu 2 attackers have dangerously crossed an unspoken barrier preventing an all-out global cyber war.