During his Friday speech at the 47th Munich Security Conference, the UK Foreign Secretary William Hague admitted that the UK government computers were infected the Zeus information-stealing Trojan in December 2010.Acknowledging that a Zeus variant had successfully infected UK government computers in December, Hague further elaborated that the government was targeted with bogus emails that apparently originated from the White House. The emails supposedly featured a link which downloaded the malware.
Hague told the conference attendees: “The UK Government was targeted in this attack and a large number of emails bypassed some of our filters. Our experts were able to clear up the infection, but more sophisticated attacks such as these are becoming more common.”
Hague also disclosed that the UK government had also suffered two attacks lately – while one attempted to steal information about the UK’s nuclear Trident programme; the other came from a unreal Foreign Office employee who happened to be a hostile state intelligence agency.
Even though Hague was all praises for the incredibly immense economic potential of the Internet, he also cautioned about a darker side to cyber space, which, in his opinion, is a consequence of excessive dependence on it.
Offering to host a cyber security conference in the summer to “explore mechanisms for giving cyber standards real political and diplomatic weight,” Hague said: “We believe that the time has come to seek international agreement about norms in cyberspace.”
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