A sophisticated form of malicious malware, known under the name Project Sauron, has been spying on a number of big organizations for 5 years.
It is widely believed that this software has been funded with the help of a very powerful country, even though it is not certain which country this is.
Project Sauron masks itself in some sort of a directory no one would ever open, and then it begins to act very unexpectedly. This makes it a malware which is very hard to detect and track down. Various experts from Kaspersky Lab and Symantec think that its basic function was to spy on the device it has infected. They have found hard evidence that this malicious software was spying on more than 30 different organizations across Russia, Iran, Belgium and China.
The scariest thing is that most of these organizations were connected with various militaries, governments or financial institutions. Because of this, it is thought that this is a case of very serious espionage.
Once it infects a computer, Project Sauron can steal files, passwords or any other form of data. It gives the hackers unrestricted access to an infected computer.
It is almost impossible to track down the hackers because the virus always uses a different method to send back data. A solid pattern is the key to defeating malware like this, but it seems like the hackers have covered their backs very well.
The malware has also been found in computers which are under constant “quarantine”, meaning they are not connected to the internet in any way. This was likely done through infected USB drives being inserted into the target computers. And still no one knows how it manages to spread so fast while remaining hidden for years.