Iranian hackers with links to the country's regime targeting US State Department staff and defense officials have been reportedly caught in an unprecedented operation.
“IBM's X-Force security team obtained roughly five hours of video footage apparently shot on the screens on hackers showing how to break into email accounts and steal data. The IT giant believes the culprits work for a group they call ITG18, which other security firms have codenamed APT35 or Charming Kitten, and which the US believes is closed connected to Iran's ruling theocracy,” Britain’s The Daily Express reported.
The videos were among 40 gigabytes of data apparently stolen from the accounts of victims, including US and Greek military personnel.
They are also thought to have targeted US State Department staff as well as an unnamed Iranian-American philanthropist.
It was revealed in May that hackers linked to Iran targeted staff at US drugmaker Gilead Sciences Inc.
In one case, a fake email login page designed to steal passwords was sent in April to a top Gilead executive involved in legal and corporate affairs, according to an archived version on a website used to scan for malicious web addresses.
Allison Wikoff, a senior analyst at IBM X-Force, told tech website Wired about the recent hacking: "When we talk about observing hands-on activity, it's usually from incident response engagements or endpoint monitoring tools.
"Very rarely do we actually see the adversary on their own desktop.
"It's a whole other level of "hands-on-keyboard" observation.
"To see how adept they are at going in and out of all these different webmail accounts and setting them up to exfiltrate, it is just amazing. It’s a well-oiled machine."
Emily Crose, a security research with cyber security experts Dragos, likewise said the team's success was unprecedented.
"This kind of thing is a rare win for the defenders,” The Daily Express quoted her as saying.
"It's like playing poker, and having your opponents lay their entire hand out flat on the table in the middle of the last flop."
