Operation socialist

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Operation Socialist was the code name of a cyber attack by the British secret service GCHQ on the infrastructure of Belgium's largest telecommunications operator, Belgacom .

When the first anomalies were noticed in 2012, the Belgacom security team was unable to determine the cause. It wasn't until 2013 that malware disguised as legitimate Microsoft software was identified as the source of the problems.

Documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 confirm a successful breach of Belgacom's infrastructure by the British secret service GCHQ in 2010 and 2013 using an attack method called Quantum Insert . Belgacom employees were infected with malware via fake LinkedIn pages. The cyber attack came under the code name "OP Socialist". The main goal of the infiltration was to gain access to Belgacom's GRX operators to enable the UK GCHQ to tap roaming data from mobile devices. These could then be used for man-in-the-middle attacks against target persons.

According to the leaked documents, Belgacom's infrastructure has been tapped by the GCHQ for years. In the publicly available documents, the head of the GCHQ Network Analysis Center describes the operation as “a success”.

Snowden described Operation Socialist as "the first documented example in which one EU member state carried a cyber attack on another " (English: " first documented example to show one EU member state mounting a cyber attack on another ... ") .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Lees here hoe de Britse secret service GCHQ Belgacom aanviel . NRC.NL. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  2. Britse secret service bespioneerde jarenlang Belgacom klanten ( nl ) De Standaard. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  3. ^ A b The Inside Story Of How British Spies Hacked Belgium'S Largest Telco . The intercept. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  4. a b Britain’s GCHQ Hacked Belgian Telecoms Firm . Spiegel Online . Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  5. Quantum Spying: GCHQ Used Fake LinkedIn Pages to Target Engineers . Spiegel Online . Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  6. How GCHQ hacked Belgacom . info security. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  7. GCHQ hacked Belgium's largest telecom service . Retrieved March 7, 2015.