infoTECH Feature

February 19, 2015

Equation Malware Unstoppable Until Hard Drive Is Destroyed

While there are all kinds of different malware threats out there these days, one has risen above the rest to become the most feared. A cyberespionage group that has a skill set very similar to that of U.S. Intelligence agencies, has managed to get into key installations in both Russia and Iran using a form of malware that is so destructive and so dangerous that destroying the hard drive is the only way to stop its spread.

Kaspersky Lab (News - Alert), one of the world’s top cyber security companies released a report on Monday that said these tools were created by the Equation group. The report stops just short of linking this group directly to US Intelligence agencies but the signature is so similar there are plenty of people who wonder if the US isn’t behind these new attacks. Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and China are countries that have been hit most often by the Equation malware.

While the signature looking like US Intelligence agencies is one clue, almost all the countries that have been hit being enemies or countries that aren’t particularly friendly with the US is another. Of the group, only India could really be considered a strong ally of the United States. The danger of this particular malware is its ability to infect the firmware of a hardrive. Once the firmware is infected, it creates hidden sectors that can only be access through a new super secret API. Once infected, disk formatting and reinstalling the operating system doesn’t get rid of the malware because the hidden storage sector remains intact.

So far, Equation is being marked as one of the most dangerous forms of malware that is on the Internet. While the victims of this particular virus have all been foreign countries so far, the real worry is that it could spread to the civilian sector. Perhaps even more dangerous is if the US government itself ever had one of its secure computers in a high security facility infected with this malware.




Edited by Stefania Viscusi
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