Top German Official Infected by Regin Malware

Angela Merkel, the renowned German Chancellor was not the sole German high-profile official who may have been secretly spied upon by its allies as the Head of a German Federal Chancellery unit allegedly had his notebook tainted by the infamous Regin, an Internet based-espionage program supposed to be employed by the National Security Agency (NSA) of United States and its close intelligence aides, said cio.com on October 26, 2015.

The Federal prosecuting office of Germany has started a probe into the alleged breach, Der Spiegel, Germany's known news magazine reported lately. The Chancellery is said to be the federal body that works for Merkel's office.

Regin possesses more than 75 modules and is described as one of the most advanced malwares that have ever been identified by security experts. Its modules facilitate a wide-array of functions that include: password embezzling, capturing of network traffic and seizing of screenshots, recovering deleted files and also exfiltrated data.

The malware (referring to Regin) has been discovered in the networks of a wide range of business houses and organizations that includes government bodies, energy sector units, airlines, research organizations and even classified individuals.

The malware in discussion is nicknamed QWERTY, reportedly a plug-in, employed in the WarriorPride framework of the NSA.

That link is supported by Edward Snowden's leaked documents and intricate technical analysis which also indicates Regin has connections to the notorious Stuxnet worm and other malwares like Flame and Duqu, besides the highly sophisticated 'Equation' cybercriminal group that has been in operation for around 15 years now and infected a large number of computers.

The present Chief of the Federal Chancellery is Peter Altmaier, heading the office for the past two years now. The Chancellery is accused of supporting Mrs. Merkel.

Der Spiegel doesn't name the individual heading the Federal Chancellery when it was targeted but go on to stress that the compromise was unearthed in 2014.

A Spokeswoman of the federal prosecution office confirmed that there was a query relating to malware called Regin, however, she turned down other requests to affirm other details as released by the Spiegel report, published securityweek.com on October 24, 2015.

» SPAMfighter News - 10/30/2015