Western intelligence infiltrated Yandex, Russia’s Google for accessing user accounts

Reuters heard from four persons familiar about a cyber attack incident that hackers on behalf of intelligence agencies of the West infiltrated Yandex the Internet Search Firm of Russia during late 2018, implanting a hitherto unknown malicious program so they could illicitly access user accounts.

According to Yandex, the firm discovered the attack pretty early followed with wholly neutralizing it prior to possibility of any damage. Nevertheless, the sources informed Reuters about the hack staying unnoticed over a number of weeks prior to the tech company eventually uncovering it and taking action. Understandably, it was during October-November 2018 when the hack occurred.

The malicious program known as "Regin," reportedly, belonged to "Five Eyes" an intelligence sharing group comprising Britain, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. However, those countries' intelligence agencies stopped short of commenting.

With news about the Yandex assault now disclosed, the firm has said through one press release that its users can rest assured that the hack could not affect any customer data. Yandex explained that cyber attacks occurred very commonly all over the globe. The security professionals at Yandex detected the particular assault pretty early and they even fully neutralized it. Right now, however, the firm wouldn't reveal any more information regarding the assault. There was total surety from the response of Yandex's security professionals that the assault could not compromise any user data. www.techradar.com posted this, June 28, 2019.

Yandex, popularly referred to as 'Russia's Google' because of the many online services it offers notably e-mail, Internet search as well as taxi reservations, states there are over 108m consumers of the firm on a monthly basis inside Russia. The firm as well operates inside Turkey, Kazakhstan and Belarus.

According to the Reuter sources, the hackers aimed at seeking technical information capable for explaining about the way Yandex validates user accounts. But spy agencies could leverage the information for impersonating any Yandex account holder while read his private messages.

Eventually, the infiltration into the R&D unit of Yandex is best explained as an espionage campaign different from the one trying to filch the firm's intellectual property or sabotaging its business.

» SPAMfighter News - 7/8/2019