Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team along with Foreign Intelligence Service claims that a new strain of Pterodo Windows Backdoor virus was found targeting the computer systems of government agencies running in Ukraine. And the investigating officials suspect that this could be a conspiracy of Russia which could be planning large-scale cyber attacks in near time.
Pterodo aka Pteradon is a malware devised by Gamaredon Threat Group which is seen targeting Ukraine Military servers and government targets. The said cyber attack group is said to be active since 2013 and is said to be funded by Kiev-based Federal Security Service (FSB).
Ukraine’s intelligence suspects that the Pteradon was inducted into the government networks of Ukraine in order to collect sensitive data related to the government’s military operations. Data from the infected systems are then uploaded to a URL allowing attackers to analyze and run the tool.
Remember, the discovery of Pterodo comes just days after CrowdStrike and FireEye reported an increase in spear phishing attacks against a wide range of government networks.
In recent times, nations like US, UK, and Ukraine have touted Russia as their top cyber adversary.
Furthermore, US officials claim that they have evidence against Russia for influencing the US 2016 Polls.
Russia has however denied all the allegations and says that the news is the impulsive work of Yellow Journalism.
