'Until now, we've never seen malware get to the micro-code, the microsystem running the hard drive itself,' Kamluk said from Singapore. (YouTube)īut this presents a new level of sophistication that Kaspersky's principal security researcher Vitaly Kamluk calls 'revolutionary.'

Vitaly Kamluk, principal security researcher at Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, says one of the only ways for any party to acquire the source code for a hard drive would be to steal it from the manufacturer. While the scope of the operation isn't fully understood yet, Kaspersky's chief malware analyst and other cybersecurity experts helped explain what's contained in the report, how the spyware works and why the revelations may have caught so many by surprise.Ĭybersecurity researchers have detected malware - foreign software that's intended to disable or take over a computer - on computer operating systems in the past. They said the NSA’s ability to secretly embed spyware into hard drives has long been prized by the surveillance agency.

Are there international rules for cyberwarfare?įormer NSA operatives confirmed to Reuters that the analysis by Kaspersky, a highly reputable anti-virus firm, was correct.

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What seems to be a U.S.-run computer espionage program has reportedly figured out how to employ a 'breakthrough' snooping tactic - the implanting of spyware into hard drives - that could compromise most of the world's computers.Īs a matter of policy, Kaspersky Lab, which publicized the discovery in a report on Monday, withheld the name of the country it suspects of being behind the operation.īut the Moscow-based anti-virus company said the country behind the implanted spyware was closely linked to Stuxnet, the computer worm deployed by the U.S.

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